Until the Last
by HM Grayson
Summary: Harry Clearwater is going to die in twenty-four hours. Too bad no one knows it.
1. 24:00:00

Disclaimer: Twilight doesn't belong to me, which is why I'm not making any money from this.

A/N: Takes place during _New Moon._

* * *

8:24 am

* * *

"You have two more minutes and then I'm coming up there!" Sue glanced at the clock again and decided her message needed more urgency. "And you don't want me to come up there!"

"They'll be down soon enough," Harry said from the table, where he was sipping his coffee, newspaper laid out around him. The black and white print was spread so far it looked like a tablecloth, but Harry was careful not to put his cup down on it. He hated when he ruined the words.

His wife disagreed with his optimistic belief that their children would ever appear, pointing to the clock again with a fierce urgency. "You have to leave in five minutes or you're not going to make it."

"We won't be late."

"You'll be late, Harry." Sue gave him the tiniest of smiles. "You're always late."

"A wise man once said, 'Nothing is too late, 'til the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.'"

"It's too early," Leah complained as she raced through the kitchen. At least, Harry thought it was his daughter. The blur could have been anything, it was moving so fast. But he called after the blur, just in case it was still listening, "Longfellow. And it's never too early."

"Yes, it is," Sue said, siding with her daughter. She had been doing that a lot lately. Harry deserved it. She called after Leah, "Your uniform's on the dryer."

Then with a sigh, she turned to Harry. "And what does that even mean? Besides that you're going to be late again?"

"Billy won't mind," was all her husband said.

"He _should_," she snapped, though Sue knew better than to think Harry and Billy would ever change. "Harry, you won't have time to pick up Billy and drop off the Leah _and_ make the meeting if you don't leave now."

"So we'll be late," he said, standing up. Sue looked exhausted from the night shift she had worked the night before, but Harry knew she wouldn't go to bed until her family was safely on its way. Nor would she turn down the extra hours she had been offered that afternoon. So he kissed her cheek and just laughed at her small sigh of exasperation, before enjoying how she put her head on his shoulder and let herself enjoy the peace, if only for a moment.

"Ijusthavetograbmyshoes andhasanyoneseenmybaseballcap andmybackpack andLeahdidyoustealmyvideogame wait it'sinmyroomjusthangon!"

Sue and Harry looked at each other and then at the doorway where Seth had stood a moment before. Thundering could be heard from the steps as the boy ran around doing whatever it was that Seth did.

"That boy is going to hurt himself one day," Sue sighed. "Did you check his fever this morning? It's still there."

"He seems fine, Sue."

"He's burning up, Harry. Maybe he shouldn't go with you—maybe I should take him to the hospital. Someone there must know something."

"What's there to know?"

No one in Forks would be able to understand what was happening to his son.

"His skin feels like it's on fire. That's not safe, Harry."

"The council will know what to do."

"Bah," she snarled. "You and your council. Always acting as if you know better than modern medicine."

"Sue..."

"Don't 'Sue' me, Harry, like your puppy dog eyes ever work. If Seth isn't feeling well, I want him to go to the hospital."

"If he so much as complains he's tired, I'll rush him straight there," Harry said.

Sue crossed her arms and scowled, a look that had destroyed many a braver man than Harry Clearwater. But this time he wasn't facing Sue's disapproval for his own sake. It was for the sake of the tribe, and so Harry held firm.

"You better," was all she muttered, when she saw she wasn't going to get her way this time.

To try and cheer her up, he began, "A wise man once said—"

"I'm in the car!" Leah shouted. She was standing by the back door, looking at her father pointedly before shutting it behind her.

"I take it that's my cue," Harry sighed. "Seth!"

"Yup?"

Seth stood back in the doorway, smiling cheerfully. His backpack was on his shoulder, his cap was on his head, and he was clutching the game to his chest.

"We ready to go?"

"That's my boy," Harry announced. "How are you feeling?"

"Great," Seth chirped. From any other child, it would have sounded forced, it was so cheerful; it should be unnatural for a fourteen year old boy to be that happy before noon. But this was Seth and even Sue looked convinced.

With that, Harry kissed his wife goodbye and headed out the door. They weren't going to be late, not by much anyway. He'd get Leah to work by nine and maybe even make the council meeting on time. Probably not. Oh well. Allowances would be made. Seth was on the cusp of his destiny; of course, Harry would be a little distracted.

Harry was glad Seth had agreed to come today, even gladder that he hadn't bothered to ask why. Harry was a terrible liar and never would have been able to think of a plausible reason. Would be able to lie to his own son about what was going to happen? Harry wasn't sure.

Resolved not to think about his son's problems until the meeting where they would be inescapable, Harry tried to concentrate on driving despite Leah's questionable taste in music.

Said daughter was currently in the seat beside him, twirling her hair around her finger and jabbing the radio when it suited her. Her freshly ironed uniform was getting wrinkled as she slouched in the seat, but she looked so comfortable Harry didn't have the heart to tell her to sit up.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed Seth was yawning as he stared out the window expectantly. His son really was an unique boy. Spring break and up before nine, and not only up but eager to face the world. Such a bright boy.

"Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say—Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have Lived today."

Two groans echoed through the car and Harry laughed quietly.

"Please," Seth begged. "It's early."

"Dryden," Harry supplied. "Be fair or foul, or rain or shine the joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself, upon the past has power, but what has been, has been, and I have had my hour."

"I will start screaming, Dad," Leah threatened, knowing Harry couldn't stop once he got started. "I swear."

Seth leaned forward, tired of this old conversation. "Hey, Leah, could you bring home some more of that chocolate cake? It was really good."

"I'll try, kid."

"Are you allowed to be taking it?" Harry asked.

"They're just going to throw it out. Plus, I won't let them see. Stupid—anyway. I am going to be so glad when I can quit."

Inside, Harry died a little bit. She shouldn't have had to do this—this was far from the plan. Leah was supposed to graduate last year, with marks high enough to secure her a scholarship just large enough to help them scrape by. When no scholarship had been forthcoming, for reasons Harry hated thinking about, Leah had been forced to stay in La Push. She wasn't supposed to have to work so hard for an uncertain future. Still, she and Sue seemed convince that this year it would happen. In the fall, the marks she had earned going to school part time this year coupled with the extra cash she had made would be enough to allow Leah to spread her wings.

It was going to be a beautiful sight.

Seth was humming in the backseat as they drove down the street, passing through the familiar streets. Harry should have let Leah drive. It would have been good practice for her. She was too used to having people pick her up. Or maybe he should have let Seth try. The boy had expressed an interest in learning and it wasn't in Harry's nature to deny anyone who wanted more.

"Hey," Leah muttered sitting up in her seat, staring out the window. "Was that Jared?"

Seth twisted around in the back seat and confirmed: "Yup."

"Since when is he dating freaky quiet stalker chick?"

The two men in the car stared blankly back at her so she felt the urge to clarify. "The girl he was kissing back there? Kim? Sort of plain, real quiet, nice in a boring sort of way? Stares at him all the time? No?"

With a sigh, she twisted herself around in the seat, so she was facing Seth. "Think, Seth. You must have heard something somewhere, with all that lurking you do. Is Jared dating Kim?"

Seth thought about it for a long while. "Uh...I think so? I heard he had a girlfriend. I think...it might have been her."

"Well it is her now." Leah spun back around and crossed her arms. "Is there something in the water that makes every guy in this stupid town like lame girls?"

"Leah..." Harry said quietly.

She was staring out the window and he pretended not to notice when she brushed the tears out of her eyes. "She's actually pretty okay."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Yeah. Why would he tell me anyway? No one tells me anything around here anymore."

That wasn't fair, Harry wanted to say. It was tradition—and it was to keep them safe. Nothing to Sue, nothing to Leah, nothing even to Seth until the fever took him. His family was to have no explanation for why their close companions had suddenly gone through growth spurts like few had ever seen and started following Sam Uley around.

Harry had always liked Sam. The boy was going to grow up all right despite his father and Harry had been grateful for that, because Joshua hadn't always been as terrible as he had become. Married too young, Harry often thought. Sue might have been younger, but Sue was Sue and there weren't a lot of women on the planet who could match her. When she knew what she wanted she went out and got it. Far be it for Harry to stop her. He was just grateful she had chosen him.

Even if she was currently furious that he seemed as enamored with Sam as the rest of the council. Sue believed in loyalty; Harry did too, for that matter. Yet he had sworn he would not explain and so he hadn't, though his wife was a tiny bit furious that he wasn't more outraged at the man who had broken his daughter's heart.

Which wasn't fair, because Harry was furious with him. More angry than Harry ever thought he would be. Sometimes when he looked at Sam he had the uncharacteristic urge to hit the younger man, though it probably would have broken his own frail bones. But Sam was going to be chief and Harry had to respect him...at least, until Jacob Black grew up.

Billy and he had discussed it, quietly of course, but discussed it nonetheless. They had expected the transfer of power the instant Jacob first transformed, but it hadn't occurred. The boy hadn't seized control. Harry's grandfather had made it sound inevitable, but clearly Harry was missing something because the boy had only supplanted Jared, not Sam. Strange. Unfortunate, too.

Not that it would have helped with Leah's heartache. Just Harry's guilt.

Billy was sitting on the porch when Harry pulled up in the driveway, Seth already out of the car before Harry stopped. He caught Leah's eye, and father and daughter laughed quietly.

"He's going to start making I-heart-Jacob buttons soon," Leah warned.

"Maybe. Probably."

Seth was already asking Billy where Jacob was as Harry got out of the car. The other old man explained, "He already left for the day. I think he was going to the woods, to meet..." Billy glanced at Leah.

"Sam," she supplied, slamming the car door.

Harry winced, unsure his baby could handle the damage. When nothing fell off, he heaved out a sigh of relief.

Leah was handling Jacob's seeming defection much better than she had handled Jared's. And Paul's. And Embry's. It hurt, more than she would admit, that the same boys who had months before told her she was a fool for waiting for Sam—who left her and scared her and wouldn't tell anybody what had happened and you shouldn't stand for that sort of crap, Leah—were now happily doing the older boy's bidding while being unable to look her in the eye. But she had stopped letting it hurt her quite so badly. She even managed to smile at Billy when she said, "Could I just run in and check if left my sweater here last time I was over? I can't find it anywhere and the last time I remember having it, we came over for dinner."

How would she handle Seth's defection? Harry didn't want to know. He couldn't bear to think of his children divided.

"Sure," Billy muttered at Leah's retreating back as Seth recovered from the disappointment at not being able to see his hero. The two Clearwater men helped settle Billy into their car, folding up his chair and putting it in the trunk. It wasn't the best way for Billy to travel, but it was inexpensive and it worked. They were only travelling short distances, after all.

Harry tried not to notice how Seth was doing all the heavy lifting. Fever and an increase in muscle mass—it wouldn't be long.

Seth slipped into the back seat as Leah came rushing out of the house, locking up with the keys Billy had left in the door, the long lost sweater on her arm.

"How is Jacob?" Harry asked as they waited for Leah to sit down.

The two men held eye contact a long while. "Better," Billy decided to say. "Well controlled most of the time but..."

"Why is your house so clean?" Leah asked as she slipped in. "Not that—" she winced. "Sorry."

Billy chuckled. "Bella comes over a lot. She tends to clean after herself when she cooks."

"How is Bella?" Harry asked.

They couldn't tell Charlie—if Harry couldn't tell Sue, he wasn't about to tell Charlie, old friend or not—but Billy and Harry had a responsibility to their friend to look out for his daughter as best she could. That's why Billy sighed.

"She's doing better. Starting to forget. Jacob's helping her a lot."

There was sadness in Billy's eyes that Harry couldn't help but notice. It was hard for Billy to watch his only son fall so hard and fast for someone who wasn't even sure they wanted to live anymore. Better, Billy had said. Better was nowhere near healed.

A strange sort of pride ran through Harry. Leah may have become screaming banshee to hide her hurt, but she had not let herself fall apart. She had held. Doors still might get slammed at the mention of Sam, but she no longer cried herself to sleep. And she hadn't needed a boy to do that.

"Jacob's spending a lot of time with her then?" Leah asked, smirk in place.

"As much as he can." Billy sighed. "All his free time."

"It's a shame," Harry couldn't help but mutter. So much pain that could have been avoided if only the human heart fell in love with things that were good for it.

Leah snorted. "The two of you are so weird. It's not the end of the world that Ephraim Black's great-grandson is in love with a white girl. It is the twenty-first century, you know."

Harry couldn't help flashing to the white skin of the Cold Ones, gleaming like ivory even in the half-darkness, the night they had come to reaffirm the treaty. White was one way of putting their problem with Bella Swan's friends, the friends she even now wanted desperately to rejoin. Such a shame that they had gotten their hands on her when they did. Teenagers were so easy to sway and impossible to deter.

Neither Billy or Harry bothered to enlighten Leah to their real problem with Bella. But all eyes turned to Seth when he casually told his sister: "They're worried because she doesn't like him back."

"Did Jacob tell you that?" Billy asked.

Seth shrugged, uncomfortable at the attention. "No. But he wasn't...he wasn't happy the last time we talked and he would have been happy if she did."

It was unbecoming to gloat about your children, but Harry felt the surge of pride anyway. Seth was going to be a great beta someday. At fourteen, the age of self-absorption and conceit, he was aware and sympathetic to the feelings of others. How had Harry gotten so lucky?

Billy still looked upset, so Harry offered, "He's only sixteen. He'll grow out of it."

"Just because he's young doesn't mean he doesn't know what he wants," Leah said. Her face turned to look out the window, softening as she gazed wistfully at nothing at all, remembering how close she had come to achieving the dreams of her sixteen year old self. With a start, she shook her head. "Jacob's sixteen now?"

"Duh, Leah. He's always been two years older than me."

"Yeah," she muttered. And then quietly, so Harry wasn't supposed to hear, she whispered to her reflection in the window, "What am I still doing here?"

Harry was glad that he reached the cafe just then. There wasn't really an answer he could offer his caged daughter. No answer but to call after her as she got out of the car:

"Remember, 'take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey!'"

"Don't be weird, Dad," Leah shouted behind her. "And you're going to be late."

Harry rolled the window back up and turned to Seth. "Are you ready, son?"

Seth nodded eagerly, having no idea what was in store for him. What would the boy look like with claws?

Inside his chest, Harry felt his heart sink.


	2. 22:52:29

9:32 am

* * *

Billy wanted to stop for coffee, so by the time they got to Old Quil's house, they were much later than Sue would have thought appropriate. All Quil did was smile brightly and hold out his hand for the doughnut they had smuggled past his watchful children.

"You can't tell," Quil said sternly to Seth, who crossed his heart and faithfully swore never to spill the secret of the forbidden pastry.

"Good," the old man said, "Now take a seat."

Harry and Billy smiled at each other as Seth did as he was told. Being older than most people could remember had its perks; no one would question Old Quil Ateara, even if he made a strange sight, walking around Seth, poking at the boy's newly defined muscles, feeling his burning temperature, checking to see how much he had grown. Seth seemed even less disturbed by it than the others had been, just kept fiddling with his electronic contraption like he couldn't wait to start playing.

"Seth, you can go in a moment," Harry said. "As a wise man once said, 'patience and fortitude conquer all things.'"

"Sorry."

"Emerson," Harry told Billy, who rolled his eyes and said: "Bet you watch more _Jeopardy_ than the host."

"Run into the kitchen and see what my daughter left us for lunch," Quil told Seth eventually. "Help yourself, if you're hungry"

"Sure thing," Seth promised, disappearing quickly.

"With the way he's been eating lately, you'll be lucky if there's anything left at all," Harry apologized.

"Jake's going through more food a day than we used to eat in a week," Billy sighed. Where was the money going to come from? But Harry didn't ask.

"You two worry too much," Quil said. "The boy can eat whatever he likes. He needs to keep his strength up."

Seth had to keep his strength up so he could protect the tribe. He was going to become the perfect warrior, he was going to help win a war—and no one could admit it was a war they couldn't win. It had been over thirty years, but wars seemed to bring out the same lies. Harry knew the truth. It wasn't natural to try and make a man a weapon. And it was never worth it—nothing was worth it—to have all those boys who wouldn't be coming home again. Not even the ones who made it home came back; Harry knew it was as true for him as it had been for Peter, who hadn't stopped drinking once in the five years it took him to kill himself after he had been discharged. And now his son...

Was it better that this new war was being fought with fangs and claws instead of machine guns and napalm? It was his son going off to fight; Harry would gladly have gone back into hell if it meant his son wouldn't have to. But it was no longer his war.

For the thousandth time, Harry felt bitterness creep into his heart. Was it too much to hope that the fighting would one day stop?

"There's something else. We still need to reach a consensus," Quil continued. "Jacob seems to believe that Bella is right, that the Cullens won't return in our lifetime. Should we tell Sam to amend the treaty? We were lucky, with her. The next girl may not be so lucky."

"Bella was lucky? She wouldn't think so," Billy sighed. "She may never be the same. They can't help what they've been made to do, but we shouldn't let them."

Billy had not liked them not warning Charlie Swan. Perhaps Harry had sided with Old Quil because he was still upset they wouldn't let him tell Sue. He hoped not. He hoped he had argued against telling Charlie because Charlie didn't deserve the horror of knowing there were monsters in the dark. Charlie didn't deserve the heartache of knowing his child was on the front line of a war he couldn't help fight. Charlie didn't deserve to know his little girl had been made into a victim and could never have justice. Charlie didn't deserve to know his baby had grown up and could never go back. That's why Harry agreed not to warn Charlie. He hoped.

"They've upheld their part of the treaty," Harry reminded the others. "They didn't cross into our land. More than that, they've harmed no one that we know of. Our ancestors had faith; we must honor them by honoring the treaty. The Cullens haven't harmed anyone. That was their pledge and they have upheld it."

"Not in spirit."

"Yes, in spirit. Bella's hurt because she thinks they would never have harmed her, that they will save her still. She hurts because she loves them and believes they loved her. We never made them promise not to love; we shouldn't ask for the impossible."

"You're assuming they _can_ love," Old Quil commented. He was intrigued by the novel idea, but skeptical.

Harry would admit they had no proof (no proof besides an emotional, hysterical teenage girl who had clearly gone through _some_ sort of horrific trauma, but perhaps a trauma of her own imagination), but somehow he couldn't make himself believe the Cold Ones couldn't love. It might have been counterintuitive, but the idea of existing without love, even as a monster, was too horrific for Harry to believe.

"You're assuming too much," Billy said.

"Maybe. But they have broken no promise. Aside from demanding they stay away from humans forever—which they won't do, anyway, I think—there's nothing more we can add to the treaty."

The wolves of La Push were not strong enough to protect the whole world. Harry knew it was selfish, but he hoped they never would be; bad enough his son had to be drafted into this war they had never agreed to. He would not have every remnant of his people forced to face evil.

They had to make a choice; the treaty protected them first and foremost. But they would have declared war in a second if the Cullens had broken faith. Harry had to believe that. It was the only reason he could look Charlie in the eye, despite Bella's choice in friends. The Cullens had always fulfilled their part of the bargain. They did not kill humans. They would not kill humans, no matter where they lived.

Harry believed the Cullens would continue to honor that agreement. Whatever Bella Swan might have believed, maybe even despite what her vampire believed, Carlisle Cullen would keep faith with the Quileute people.

If they didn't believe in the treaty, why bother making it in the first place?

Harry trusted his ancestors; he would trust the Cullens.

"They may never come back," Billy said hopefully. "They may be too ashamed of what they did to her, leaving her unprotected after exposing her to danger."

But she was not unprotected. The Quileutes would watch over her—it's what they had been born to do.

Their conversation ended abruptly as Seth came back into the room, still cramming bread into his mouth. Sue would have kicked him out the house; Harry chuckled.

"A wise man once said, "The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.'"

"I won't get sick, Dad." Not with a werewolf appetite. "Can I head down to the beach now? I promise I'm feeling fine."

The three men stared at each other for a moment. How soon would it happen? Should the boy be left alone? They couldn't follow him everywhere, but to leave exposed him to the world when it was only a matter of time... Seth had a beautiful disposition, but he was fourteen... who knew what would set him off.

Billy tapped his shoulder, nodding in direction of the window. Outside, Embry Call sat on the beach. He would watch over his brother.

"Stay in sight," Harry said. "We won't be much longer."

Old Quil snorted. At the rate they were going, they were never going to find the wisdom to deal with the Cullens. They needed more doughnuts.

It was a rather hopeless situation. They had argued incessantly when the Cullens were here, they would continue to argue long after they had joined their ancestors. What to do with the monsters that didn't want to be monsters? If Sue was on the Council, she would have called Harry a fool. People don't change, she would have sneered. Yes, but you just called them people, he would have answered.

But what if he was wrong?

His son was already cursed. Would he be cursing another? Bella or some other girl in Forks? A girl from La Push? His beautiful Leah? The perfect daughters she would one day have?

"You should cut his hair," Billy said, after they agreed to pause the endless conversation for yet another day. "It's too long now."

"He won't like that," Harry sighed. "Sue won't like that."

She was proud—too proud, sometimes—of the thick black hair that cascaded over her russet shoulders. She had taught her children to be proud of it. Sue would see it as a declaration of shame, a sign of conformity to cut Seth's hair shorter than they wore it even in Forks. And she would be curious, too, about why Harry had cut his son's hair regulation length, when she knew better than anyone how hard he worked to forget.

An angry Sue was better than a curious Sue, but this would make her both. It went without saying that Sue was always dangerous.

"You'll think of something to tell her," Old Quil said.

Billy laughed. "She'll think you didn't realize what you were doing, anyway."

Harry snorted, rose to his feet, and wishing he had bought a donut for the road. His heart felt fine. Sue worried too much; being in that hospital all day made her too inclined to look for the worst. Besides, there was no point of living if you couldn't enjoy yourself.

On the porch, he looked around for Seth. His son was on the beach with a few other boys. Harry sighed, seeing Embry Call tower above the others, sighed even longer when he saw how Seth was starting to bridge the gap between the others and the wolf. It was to be expected. Seth would be bigger than most of the wolves, in the end. But at fourteen? Harry felt his heart seize.

Too soon, too soon, but they couldn't stop it even if they wanted to. Their people had to be protected.

Seth saw him waiting, said a few words, then came bounding over. The other boys faded away, but Embry followed him. The boys were still looking for what little guidance the Elders could offer them. Harry knew he would never forgive himself for how they had failed Sam Uley. They hadn't connected the stories with the lost boy in front of them and had failed Sam in his hour of great need. Maybe if Sue knew that, she would forgive Sam. Maybe Leah could too.

Harry would not fail again.

"How are you feeling today, Embry?" Harry called out.

"A little tense, but nothing too bad," the boy shouted back. "Sore, too. I've been hiking a lot lately."

"Careful in the woods."

"Always am, sir. And Sam's good about keeping us safe. He's a slave driver, but we're safe."

"Does that mean I can come with?" Seth asked both Embry and Harry. In Embry's tired eyes, Harry saw his own sadness reflected.

"Soon," Harry promised with a sigh. "Just let me convince your mother."

"Aw, man, I'm never going to get to go."

"It's not as much fun as it sounds," but Embry's grin gave him away. Boys. Sometimes they could make the best of a terrible situation as long as they could move quickly. Thank goodness for boys.

"Get some rest, Embry," Harry warned him. "You look too tired."

"I'm fine, Harry. Thanks."

With a familiar half grin, Embry Call waved goodbye. Harry tried not to think too much about who the boy reminded him of, like he had since the boy had begun to phase. Even before, he sometimes thought Jacob's friend was a little too familiar, but had dismissed it as his own imagination running wild. Now, he just reminded himself it wasn't his secret to know. It shouldn't have been a secret (the boy might start forgetting he wasn't what was shameful), but it since it was, Harry had to mind his own business.

Though he still wished that the tribe had been right, that it had been Lillian Call's grabby neighbor like they all used to think.

Not that anything should change the way the boy was treated. The town had been good, most of the time. When they weren't, Harry was sure to hear about it. Sue had radar when it came to the word bastard; woe to the person she caught using it.

"It's the asshole who left her who should be ashamed," Sue had snapped one night as they cooked dinner. Some drunk kid had decided to call up Lillian and ask how much it cost for a good time and Sue was on the warpath. She had moved from the failings of society in general (with its words like legitimate and illegitimate, as if a child could ever be a disgrace) and onto the particular failings of the man Lillian wouldn't name. "Pretending he never saw her even though that boy stands there, sweet as can be. How you can get away with shit like this, I'll never know."

"Maybe it's just too late; maybe he has other responsibilities, or people he's afraid of losing if he speaks up now. Maybe he's sorry."

"Those _bastards_ are never sorry," Sue declared, still angry with her father after all those years because sometimes she had been ashamed to admit she had a half-brother even though she had loved him best. She slammed the lid down on the pot and turned to her children. "If I hear either of you have been giving the Call boy a hard time, you better learn how to make your own food."

The children stopped eating to stare at their mother. Harry filled the silence:

"'For the sins of your fathers you, though guiltless, must suffer.' It is not fair; don't make Horace's words true. "

"Dad," Seth whined.

Leah finally stopped fiddling with her knife. "We get it. I'm always nice to Embry, anyway. It's why he always lets me have those jelly beans for free."

"It's cause he looooves you," Seth sang, just asking to be poked. Leah obliged. They kept it up as Leah protested, "You're just jealous you don't get free stuff. And because you have no friends."

"I do so have friends. Mom! Tell Leah I have friends."

Sue rolled her eyes. "Seth, get on the other side of the table. And Leah, you better not be taking things from them. You have your own money. Pay for it yourself."

"They're like two cents each. And I only let him do it if I've stayed and talked for a while. That place always has the most annoying tourists in it—someone once came in and asked if they were in Quileute? I mean, come on. I needed sugar to fortify myself afterwards."

Sue didn't seem convinced, but her anger had been diverted. "Honestly, Harry, you would hope that if they wanted to come to their little Indian zoo, they would pick up a brochure first."

It was strange how ignorant tourists always showed up when Sue was getting too hot-blooded on some issue or another, but Harry never did question his daughter. He just addressed his wife: "I'm sure they just want to see the beach. There's no place in the world nicer than First Beach. As a wise man once said, 'In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.'"

"Mom, make him stop," his children begged as one, then went back to kicking each other under the table. But they were laughing, so Harry let them continue and helped Sue with the chicken, hoping to avoid the green mess that she had prepared for him now that she was on her health kick.

"Dad? You're doing it again," Seth said cheerfully, tugging at his father's wrist. First Beach extended before them, majestic and free as always. Harry couldn't help smiling, even has his son's fingers burned against him.

"Sorry. I was just thinking..."

"Vibrations of beauty. I know, Dad."

"Morley."

"Yeah." Seth let him have another moment. "Can we go? I'm starving."

"Billy?"

"You're blocking the door, fatty," Billy said, rolling up behind him. Harry laughed and moved out of the way, standing on one side of the wheelchair while Seth took up position on the other side. They (well, Seth, but Harry helped him with the balance) lifted Billy down the steps and placed him on the ground.

"I can make it home faster if I go my own way," Billy said, patting his chair.

"If you're sure?"

"I'll be fine, Harry."

"Oh, I forgot—Sue wanted me to invite you over Thursday. Come. Get her off my back."

"I don't know," Billy deliberated. "I was going to eat left over macaroni. I'm not sure I can pass that up."

"Is Jacob coming?" The older men didn't quite keep their faces expressionless in the face of Seth's enthusiasm, but they tried, valiantly.

"We'll see." Perhaps Jacob would be too busy in the woods, helping Seth through the first part of the transformation. At least Seth would get to see Jacob. It was something, so Harry held on to it.

To put that smile back on his son's face, Harry held up the car keys. "Do you want to drive us home?"

"Are you joking?" The suspicion was palpable—and Sue said their children were nothing like her. Harry was fairly certain that incredulous expression wasn't from his side of the family. Nor was the reflex that kicked in next: Seth grabbed the keys and rushed to the car with a whoop. Harry would have still been standing there, trying to determine what the right thing was. Like his mother, the boy just knew.

"Probably safer than you driving, anyway," Billy said as he began rolling down the street.

"If the car crashes, I'm just getting your son to pull it off the tree and to carry it home."

Billy's laughter boomed down the street, as Seth eagerly waved his father over, trying to get him to hurry up. Harry smiled. Sure, he might have a heart attack watching his son drive, but Sue was an RN. She'd know how to fix him right up.


	3. 20:39:52

A/N: The story Harry tells is taken verbatim from the Quileute Nation website, "Raven Tales." I mean no disrespect or copyright infringement; this is a not-for-profit story; I didn't want to dilute the veracity of the story by re-wording it.

* * *

11:45 am

* * *

They reached home alive and just in time for lunch. Harry couldn't help feel a little concerned about how hungry his son was. Watching him drive home had been less worrisome than noticing the tiny imprints he left on the steering wheel from where he had been clutching it too tightly.

Too soon, too soon, but time wasn't stopping.

With a sigh, Harry got out of the car. "Let's see what your mother left us to eat for lunch."

"I can make omelettes now," the boy promised. "Mostly."

"Well, if I can mostly make them and you can mostly make them, together we should be able to make them completely, wouldn't you say?"

"That makes perfect sense," Seth agreed. "But let's see what Mom left for us first."

"Good idea."

He followed behind the young boy—who was already getting too close to the top of the doorframe for his liking—into the house, helping with the scavenging. There was some cold soup they passed over, some frozen peas that were far too green, tonight's uncooked dinner and a bunch of Tupperware they didn't dare touch. Only Sue knew what would be in there.

They settled on toast and the omelettes, which didn't turn out too badly considering. A little runnier than Sue made them, perhaps, but not too bad.

"If I eat this, could a baby chicken start growing in my stomach?" Seth wondered as they downed the food.

"Those who make jokes about the food must clean up the plates," Harry declared.

"You can't make up the rules as you go."

"Sure, I can. I'm your father."

"I'll tell Mom you touched her good frying pan."

"You wouldn't dare."

The stare down didn't last very long. Seth couldn't keep his face serious for more than ten seconds to save his life. Harry was proud of that, for some reason. Besides, the boy's smile was infectious.

"How about we team up on this one?" Harry offered.

"Sounds good. I call drying."

Cheat. But Harry managed to rise above it. Besides, the boy did help more than he said he would. He seemed to enjoy splashing around in the bubbles.

"What were you planning to do this afternoon?" Harry tried to ask casually. He never would have fooled Sue, but Seth just shrugged.

"Maybe go see what Colin's up to. Or just play some video games. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. Why?"

Thank goodness some of the others would be safe. With the threat of the Cullens gone, there would be no need for the boys Seth's age to partake in the transformation, in the fighting. Quil would transform, probably, the last of the boys of Jacob's age, and Seth, because of his blood, but the others would be spared. It would have to be enough.

"How'd you like to get your hair cut today?"

"My hair?" Seth repeated blankly. "Mom just had me cut it in September."

"How would you like to cut it short? Like Jacob's?"

"Like Jacob's? That short? Mom..."

"I'll talk to her about it. I'll tell her it was my idea."

Seth still didn't seem to comprehend, studying his father, his expression baffled. "Why would I want to cut off my hair? It's...it's tradition."

"Shakespeare once said, 'Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! _Give me the spirit_.'"

"I know, but..."

It was time to use his own words, however inadequate they were. "Seth, no matter what you look like—even if you sprouted hair everywhere or grew fangs or...no matter what, it doesn't matter. It's your heart that matters. It's your heart people will see, no matter how short your hair is."

The boy still looked fearful. "You want me to cut my hair like Jacob's? Like Embry's? Like...Sam's?"

Was that knowledge in his son's eyes? Harry could only hope. All he could say was, "Yes."

"Am...am I going to disappear for a little while, too?"

Harry placed one hand on his son's shoulder, trying to will strength from his old useless body into his son's powerful one. "You'll be safe."

"Mom's going to worry. And Leah...she won't..."

"We'll make them understand," Harry promised. "We'll tell them the stories and maybe they'll start listening with their hearts. They love you. Never forget. They will always love you."

Seth nodded and turned away. Harry gave him a moment to run his fingers through his thick hair. "You won't even have to comb it, anymore."

"That'll be good."

Finally, the boy turned. There was a half-sad smile on his face. It wasn't exactly knowledge, not yet, but the foreboding would serve him well. It was the best Harry could do. "You want to do it now?"

When Harry nodded, Seth just took one long look around the kitchen and followed his father into his workroom.

It should have been a shed, but for as long as Harry could remember it had been his sanctuary. They could throw the gardening tools around the house—he needed the space in the backyard to capture the magic that hummed through the earth and air. The smell of fresh wood enveloped him as soon as he walked through the door, welcoming him home, keeping him safe.

Half-finished carvings decorated the room. Sue said it was impractical, that he should just make one at a time, but he couldn't force the wood to become what it would not. He had to ask and it had to respond—his hands had to know every grain and every knot before he could shape the trees into what they should become.

Though maybe he should clean up the wood shavings that tended to accumulate on the floor.

There were a pair of scissors on the floor and a razor on his desk. Harry often wandered out to his workroom in the middle of his morning routine and the only surprise was that there weren't more razors lying around.

"Here," Harry said, pointing to a half finished stool in the corner. "You can sit on that."

Seth moved it to the middle of the room and sat down, more preoccupied with his father's creations than with the task at hand. "That's new," he said pointing the mask Harry had just started the day before. It was far more complete than many of the other pieces in the room. Yesterday had been a good day.

"It's about Báyaķ and Píxt'adax."

"Raven and Eagle."

"Good. Would you like to hear the story?" Harry asked.

"In English?"

Harry just laughed.

"How am I supposed to learn to listen to you if I can't understand you?"

"Just remember I'm holding scissors," he warned Seth, who just smiled, closed his eyes and waited for Harry to begin. Harry waited until after he made the first cut, after the black hair fell to the floor and mixed with the wood, until after there was no going back, to begin.

He began the story, in the language of his ancestors, knowing he had told it enough that it would be easy to follow.

Harry said:

I'm going to tell you the story of Báyaķ, the Raven, and Píxt'adax, the Eagle.

One time Báyaķ went up the river to the home of Píxt'adax.

Right away, Eagle told his wife to fix a big meal for the visitor, Báyaķ. Raven noticed that Píxt'adax had a lot of dried halibut. Lots of fish.

Báyaķ watched as Mrs Eagle cooked. First she put some of the dried fish and some water in a steambent box. Then she picked out a hot rock from the fire, using her special wooden tongs. She put that hot rock into the box and the water started boiling right away. That's how she cooked the halibut for dinner.

When they had eater and were filled up, and Píxt'adax gave Báyaķ the leftovers to take home. Before he left, Raven asked Eagle, "You've got lots of fish. How did you get all those halibuts?"

Píxt'adax knew Old Raven was always trying to copy others. He decided to trick Báyaķ, to teach him a lesson, a lesson he'd never forget.

"Ha-ha!" Eagle said. "Do you see my boy over there? He looks like he's been chewed up many times. He's the secret bait I use on my hook, my chibód. That's the way I get all my halibuts."

Báyaķ said to Eagle, "I think I'll try that."

Eagle smirked and said, "Be sure and do it right. When the line starts jerking, don't pull it up right away because you only got one halibut. When it quits jerking, then you got two on the line Then you start pulling. It'll take both hands because you'll have two big halibuts!"

Báyaķ couldn't wait to try Píxt'adax's way of fishing. He hurried home, back down the river. When he got home, he told his wife, "Eagle's got a lot of halibuts. He gets so many because he uses a special bait."

Mrs Báyaķ listened to him. She listened to another of Old Raven's plans. "They might be fooling you, as usual," she warned him.

But Old Raven was sure this time.

He told her the reason Píxt'adax caught so much halibut was because he used his son for bait!

"Don't you do it," Mrs Báyaķ told him. "Don't you try that."

But Báyaķ insisted. "That's the only way we're going to have a lot of halibut like the others have. So tomorrow we'll go out early in the morning."

Again his wife said to him, "They might be fooling you, old man."

In the morning, Báyaķ got ready to go. He woke his son up. And he soaked his kelp fishing lines, to get them strong and ready. Finally they all got in the canoe and started paddling.

When they got to the halibut grounds, Báyaķ told his boy to get ready, that he was going to be the bait for the fish. Old Raven remembered what Eagle told him, not to pull up the line until it quit moving; that way he'd be sure to catch two big halibuts.

Mrs Raven begged. "Píxt'adax might be fooling you, old man," she said. But Báyaķ wouldn't listen.

Raven put hooks on his son and tied him to the fishing line. Then he lowered him into the water for bait. Báyaķ let the line go way, way down.

It wasn't long until the line started jerking.

"See," Báyaķ told his wife. "See, I told you there was a lot of halibut down there. Look at the line jerking!"

Then he reminded her of what Píxt'adax told him—"Don't pull it up until it stops moving."

Finally the line quit jerking. Báyaķ said to his wife, "Now I'm going to pull it up and we'll have halibuts. Two big halibuts on the line."

He started pulling, pulling, pulling.

"It's heavy," he said. "It's awful heavy. Those fish must be really big!"

Finally he got it to the surface. And there was his boy—drowned.

Mrs Báyaķ started to cry. "I told you old man, I told you. Somebody always fools you."

And they went home. They lost everything.

"So listen to your wife," Harry told his son, with a small smile, running the razor over his newly shorn hair. "Because your children are your world and without them you are lost."

"And learn mouth to mouth," a voice called from the doorway. A familiar voice. Harry turned to see Leah leaning against the doorway, a tiny smile on her face. "I thought I'd find you guys here."

"You're off early. You should have called," Harry admonished gently. "I would have come to pick you up."

"It was a slow day—I didn't want to interrupt. I can walk, you know. It was nice." She threw her head back and laughed, dark eyes sparkling. "Mom is going to kill you for cutting his hair."

"No she won't," Seth said, defended his mother. He put his hands up, feeling the bristles against his hands. "Does it look really funny, Leah?"

"You're always going to look like a dweeb, dweeb, but it's not bad. In fact, you almost look as cool as Jacob—which isn't saying much, but it's a step up from where you used to be."

Seth grinned.

Harry ran his fingers over the boy's short hair and sighed. It was so short.

"Dad?" Leah was watching him from the doorway, her face soft, her voice concerned. Like she was talking to a wounded animal. Good, she had practice. Maybe she'd be able to help her brother. "Is everything okay?"

"Your mother isn't going to be too happy with me," he muttered. "Protect each other, okay? Always. Protect..."

But Harry wasn't sure what he was saying. He couldn't tell them that the magic wouldn't hurt them; he could only beg them not to forget why it was worth it. They had to protect those they loved. Even if they deserved better than that.

"'Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.' Remember that," he ordered and Seth nodded, though he didn't understand why. Then he hopped off the stool and headed inside.

Leah ran her hand over his mostly bald hair as he ran pass. "Wow, that feels weird."

"Stop it," he cried, slapping her hand away as she burst out laughing.

"Leah..." Harry asked her. "Don't bug him about it too much. He's already going to hear it from your mother."

In the doorway, he saw his daughter straighten. "Why did you cut his hair like Sam's?"

What answer could he give to that? Tell no one. Spare them. He had to spare his little girl from the nightmares and the horrors he couldn't keep from his son. It was his duty, his job—the reason he got up in the morning. He had promised her, with every kiss on every scrapped knee that he would watch out for her. Harry had always believed too much in duty—sixteen and bored, why else had he agreed to pick up a gun with a lie? But it wasn't just duty holding him back, it was love. He couldn't hurt her, not for anything. He couldn't tell her.

But why did he feel as if not telling her was worst of all?

"Don't stand too close to him. He's getting a bit of a fever. I don't want you to catch anything."

"Fine," she snapped. "Be that way. I don't care what you and your precious son and his stupid boys only club do."

"Leah..." he said, rising from his chair, but she had already turned away.

Was that the price of keeping his tribe safe? Losing his daughter's respect? It was far too high a price. Harry settled himself on the stool. He couldn't tell her and she didn't want anything from him but the truth. Could he...maybe Sue could...perhaps Seth...what in the world was he going to do?

"Mom called me at work." Leah was back in the doorway. "She said to remind you to take your pills."

Always on about her modern medicine. As if those pills made a difference. Where in the world had he put them?

"Thank you, Leah. I...I can shave your head, if you want?"

The tiniest smile crosses her face. "As if I'd let you near my hair."

There was a reason for her pride. It was beautiful hair; maybe even nicer than Sue's had been. Sue had always insisted on beads and braids and all sorts of artificial decorations; even now, Sue hated leaving it unadorned. Leah just left it down, let it fly after her, surrounding her, protecting her.

"It's beautiful the way it is," Harry said and this time she fully smiled at him.

"Thanks. I...I don't know what's been up with me lately. I thought I'd stopped being crazy psycho broken-hearted girl but..."

"A wise man once said, 'Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.' But he didn't mean it takes twenty-four hours."

"Yeah, I wish."

She came towards him then, his little girl looking like a woman but with such innocent eyes. It broke his heart all over again.

"You take as long as you'd like, Leah. We want you happy again—it can take as long as it has to, as long as you're all right in the end."

There were tears in her eyes, but she was Sue's daughter, not just his. She smiled through her pain. Looking too closely at the scars was terrifying; he understood why they could never do it, even when they wore them proudly. It was better than scratching at the scars until it was impossible to tell which wounds were old and which were new. Perhaps it was even better than pretending it hadn't happened, that his hands had not become weapons; or maybe it wasn't pretend, maybe the smell of his home really could make him forget what blood and shit and death smelt like in that country far, far away.

Harry wished his love was enough to heal her.

"Hey, I've got one for you." The smile was back, almost as beautiful as it had once been. Hope, there was always hope. Leah was mending. Seth would be flying apart soon, too soon, but Leah would be whole. It was all he had to cling to, so cling Harry did. "It's a good one or, at least, I like it. Ready?"

"Ready."

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

Harry could only shrug. He rarely knew where any of the words floating around his head came from. But he had heard it before, somewhere. He had told Peter once, when his friend was sober; Peter laughed and pulled out another bottle.

Hell wasn't a place—hell was inside your head.

Some people never did figure out how to leave.

Harry told his daughter: "I give up."

"Churchill."

"Now that man knew how to speak."

A different war, but how different could the pointlessness of it all be? Horror wasn't something you could quantify. Harry's nightmares sounded like nothing when sixty million souls disappeared then, but that didn't mean he didn't sometimes wake Sue when he didn't mean to. And the lack cameras didn't mean the bombs on London hadn't sounded just as loud as the ones the dropped by Operation Rolling Thunder (it had been before Harry's time, but he never forgot the look in the others' eyes when they talked of it).

War was hell. It was a deceptively simple statement.

And now Seth...

But Churchill had a point. You had to keep going. Not all of them could, but Harry had, and he knew it was the only way to survive. Put the ugliness behind you, focus on the love and the beauty that still existed—somehow—outside the hell. Love, and the nightmares wouldn't be so bad.

No matter how dark it seemed, no matter how dark it was, it was never dark forever. Harry had to believe that. You could find the light again. You could leave it behind. Leah had to learn that lesson, and soon, because she had to teach her brother one day. But she was strong. She would learn, and she would teach, and she would love.

And his son would come back.

"I can't believe I got you," she said, smile lighting up her face. "Take that, old man."

Her lips brushed his forehead, hot against his skin, and then she danced out of the room, hardly noticing that her father had brought his hand to his head, heart thundering. Then he laughed to himself. His worry was making him paranoid. His fears over Seth were making him see the symptoms everywhere. Leah had probably had a coffee before leaving work and the cold room had left him too sensitive.

Shaking his head, trying to quiet his overactive imagination, Harry turned around and got back to work on his latest mask. The magic was calling to him.

As he worked, the pounding in his chest slowed until it was forgotten entirely.


	4. 14:35:37

5:49 pm

* * *

The knock on the door startled Harry out of the world he had traveled to, bringing him back to his workshop, where he was sitting with a freshly carved mask in one hand and a blade in the other. The stool underneath him was growing more and more uncomfortable as the years passed him by, but it still held.

"How long have you just been staring at that thing?" Leah asked.

Harry shrugged.

"Mom called again. Heads up—she's going to be home soon and she'll want you inside when she gets here. It sounds like she's had a long day."

"I'll be up in a few."

Leah's snort suggested she didn't believe him. "How do you even see in here? Haven't you ever heard of light bulbs?"

"A wise man once said, 'His high endeavours are an inward light that makes the path before him always bright.'"

"Dad, he didn't mean you can literally light up a room. Come in or pretty soon you won't be able to find your way back to the house. And we are not going to send out a search party."

"You drive a hard bargain." The dimming light decided Harry. "I suppose I should come up and make sure you kids eat something."

"Or that Seth has left something behind for the rest of us."

"He's a growing boy."

"Right. I forgot I had to offer him my plate first, to see if there was something he wanted."

She stormed off then, marching into the house in a swirl of self-righteous fury. He had to start being more sensitive, stop letting his worry about the upcoming transformation seep into everything he did. Leah didn't know why her pain had suddenly become secondary to her brother's stomach. She didn't know, so how could she be expected to understand? He was asking too much of her. He had to stop.

She was already gone.

Harry rose with a sigh, stretching out his aching muscles, trying not to notice how his fingers ached. He was getting old. Well, what did he expect? There was nothing wrong about old age, really. Still thinking of Woodsworth, Harry remembered that 'The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind.' Not that he claimed to be wise, but Harry could understand the obvious—better to be sore and tired and have a wonderful family by his side then to never get there at all.

So many had never gotten this far.

Nowadays, the boys were safer. Vampires seemed to be solitary creatures; the stories never had them in large groups, with the obvious exception of the Cullens. His son would never head into battle; the Quileutes would ambush the vampires that tried to attack them, but they would have the benefit of numbers and teamwork. Harry would get older and frailer—and his son would be there to fruitlessly remind him not to work too hard.

The hair on the floor needed to be taken care of no matter how he ached, so Harry swept it up, letting it mingle with the wood chips and dust and dirt. The room was already a mess, really, but if he didn't keep it in some sort of order Sue would kill him. Secretly, Harry loved the non-regulation style mess. There was no ugliness in it, even if it was a disaster. In La Push, the chaos did not mean death like it did in foreign lands. At home, the chaos meant he was safe.

Yet for Sue's sake, he cleaned the room as best he could. Only once Seth's hair was brushed aside did he head up to the house.

"Harry, I could use a hand here," Sue snapped. She had beaten him home and didn't look happy about that. There was a plastic bag in her hand and she was pulling out various cartons. Wednesday's were supposed to be an easy shift, since she worked fewer hours, but the work at the hospital was never easy.

"Sorry," he said, scrambling to get the plates as she handed him the food. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting long."

"The animals were too hungry to wait for you tonight."

"I can hear you," Leah said, getting herself a glass of water. "And I should not be compared to Seth the wonder disposal."

"I remember leaving a loaf of bread on the table. I didn't see your brother eating that."

"Dad made me walk home from work. I was hungry."

"It's a long walk," he reminded Sue. Not that she was listening, too busy calling for Seth to come down to the kitchen to help. He had apparently run off with a few chicken wings and hadn't been seen since.

"If you don't help, you don't eat," Sue reminded her son. His reappearance—carrying an empty carton—was not a joyous occasion. It reminded Sue she was appalled by what her husband had done, as her tone made clear. "What in the world did you do to his hair, Harry?"

"He made sure I'm not 'Harry', Mom. Get it? Get it, Leah? Because Mom said I was—"

Apparently Leah wasn't against her brother eating if it meant he wasn't talking. The apple she had been trying to eat behind her mother's back ended up shoved into Seth's wide open mouth.

"You're still not funny, Seth."

The boy pouted (while eagerly chewing), setting the table when Sue ignored his pleading eyes and handed him the cutlery.

"Do you even have an explanation, Harry?" Sue sighed. "Or did you just not realize you were cutting off almost fifteen years worth of hair?"

"I had to cut off his hair, Sue."

"And why is that?"

"It was...too long."

"So you decided to just shave it all off?"

Panicking, a little, Harry reached for a better explanation. "A wise man once said, 'Vanity is the quicksand of reason.'"

"Are you saying I'm vain? Or just stupid?"

"That's not—"

"Or are you calling our son vain? Or just throwing out useless words so you can go off into...wherever the hell it is you go so you don't have to bother thinking about anything as unimportant to you as your family!"

The deep breathes she was taking caused her nostrils to flare out, making Sue a bit like a bull about to charge. Harry handed Leah the napkins: "Go help your brother set the table."

Ignoring how his children were still watching their parents cautiously, Harry took a step forward, hands up. "I should have asked you first."

"But you didn't."

She was bewildered and lost, things she liked to promise herself she would never be again. Harry ran everything by her, always, except for how to tell the stories (it wasn't pride; the words were just always on his tongue and he never could stop them from spilling out long enough to ask her opinion on how he should say them). The little things and the big things, Harry always asked his wife what she thought. Until he didn't.

"You weren't home."

"No," she agreed, she begged. She wanted an answer he couldn't give, so he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. In his old age, Harry was getting shorter; Sue was as tall and straight as ever. They would be the same height, soon enough.

After Seth became taller than anything they had ever imagined.

"I'm sorry. I'll ask next time; but he doesn't need his hair to be Seth."

"I know," she snapped against his shoulder. "No other fourteen year old eats that much."

"I think it looks good," Leah spoke up as her brother quickly put down the half of the cucumber he hadn't devoured.

"You look..." Sue busied herself with dinner. "Do you remember that picture of your uncle Peter on the beach in my room? With your hair like that, you look like he did..."

Before he shipped out.

"Does this mean I can use his gun the next time we go hunting?"

Seth's enthusiasm for the ancient rifle did not stop Sue's reply from coming swiftly and firmly. The rifle and the dog tags were all Sue had left of her brother, but that wasn't the reason she was never going to let her baby boy near the gun that had been in her family for as long as she could remember. Seth was a good boy—if only it wasn't so easy to imagine him tripping over his own two feet in his enthusiasm and shooting himself in the chest.

"Not until you're eighteen and can stand still for over an hour."

"But that'll never happen. Mom..."

"How come Seth gets it?" Leah demanded, interrupting her brother's whining. "I'm older and can actually aim, which is more than Seth can."

"No one is getting anything until I'm dead," Sue said. "And if you want me dead, you can make your own dinner."

"No thank you," Seth declined. The tension left Leah (she had been doing so much better lately—was today significant and Harry just couldn't remember why?) as she laughed at her brother and sat down at the table. "Hey, Mom? What's for dessert?"

"Air."

"Aw, that sucks."

"I got you cookies, kid. If you want. They're in my room."

"You'rethebestLeah!"

And then there was a blur where Seth had been.

"I'd say it would spoil his appetite, but at this point I'm hoping for it," Sue told him. Since Sue seemed to need it, Harry wrapped his arms around her again. Every time he held his wife, he couldn't help feeling lucky. He was still standing, and he had Sue.

"Long day?"

"Just your usual stuff. Coughs, bones, burns."

"Burns?"

Sue sighed, leaning into him. "One of the old ladies up in Forks forgot the soup on the stove. When she remembered it was there, she forgot it was still hot. The poor old woman, Harry...she doesn't have anyone..." For a long moment, Harry could see what it did to her, fighting against indifference all the time. Then she stood up straighter. "We got her bandaged up pretty well, and I'm going to make her stay where I can look after her if it kills me."

"I'm sure she'll stay wherever you think is best." When Sue decided to do something, it was as good as done.

"On the desk."

Both her parents jumped at the sound of Leah's calm voice, but she didn't seem to notice. Even though she wasn't shouting, Seth seemed to hear her just fine, even from upstairs, inside her room. Of course he would. Any day now. Or maybe Harry was just being too gloomy, because though he could barely make out Seth's muffled voice, Leah seemed to hear him just fine. "Did I say under the binder? No. They're on top of the desk."

Leah rolled her eyes at the muffled shout they heard from upstairs. "King of the cookies? Is he really that lame? Are you sure he's not adopted?"

"Leah," Sue said. "Don't tell your brother, but the aliens actually just asked us to babysit and never bothered coming back for him."

"I knew it."

Harry admonished them both as Seth came rushing down the stairs, box of cookies in one hand, half-devoured cookie in the other. "What part of dessert don't you understand?" Sue sighed, taking the box away from him. "Sit down and let's eat while there's still something left."

"It looks good," Harry complimented his wife. His children were too busy eating to say anything at all.

"I thought I had bought chicken?" Sue asked the table. Seth blushed and handed her the salad. "You're lucky I bought the turkey, too."

"My wife is a genius," Harry bragged, just a little. "Plans for everything."

After Sue finished thanking the invisible audience (while Leah and Seth clapped appreciatively), she admitted: "It wasn't my idea. I ran into one of Leah's friends at the store. He suggested we might need a little more food."

"Who?" Leah asked, snatching the bread from her brother.

"Oh, what's his name? The tall one."

"That's practically every guy on the rez, nowadays."

"Brady's dad says the government is putting something in the water. To try and make people stronger, so the army has better soldiers and all that," Seth assured them all.

Harry would have laughed at Brady Sr.'s latest conspiracy theory if it wasn't almost true. As it was, his stomach tightened and he was glad his children had devoured most of the food.

"I thought I told you to bring Brady over here," Sue said. "And not to listen to that—just come here."

Seth looked confused, but fortunately Leah was still curious. "Which friend talked to you?"

"Paul," Sue finally remembered.

Harry was more than a little alarmed. Sue could be a little...sharp sometimes; she wasn't the best person to be around when everything could trigger a dangerous transformation. Still, it didn't sound as if anything too terrible had happened. Maybe Sam was testing the boys, seeing if they could hold their tongue even around those who were inclined to be...antagonistic. If provoked.

"Ew. Paul is _not_ my friend."

"Fine. I ran into a boy approximately around Leah's age, who she has known since he was born. Is that better?"

"No. Paul is_ not_ my age. He's closer to Seth's—and we are never going to be friends. You couldn't pay me to be in the same room as that stupid, mouthy little punk. He's, like, less mature than _Seth_. Ask anyone. Everyone knows Paul is a total ass—jerk."

"Leah..." Harry reminded her. Not that he needed to. She looked apologetic already.

"Well, he's the reason we still have some food on the table, so you might want to be a little more grateful. And tell him to ask next time he borrows the ham. I may be old but I have eyes."

Sam really should get the boys to be more respectful to the community at large. Unless they were starving...were they starving? Seth was devouring so much food. So was Leah, Harry noticed, and there was no way she was going to transform. Maybe it was just a puberty thing.

"That reminds me," Harry began. "I invited Billy over Thursday. Him and Jacob."

"And when were you going to tell me this?" his wife demanded.

"I just invited them this morning."

"Harry..."

"I'll help. Billy looked like he needed some good food."

"If that's the case, you better not help."

"Your confidence is inspiring, Sue."

"You're welcome, dear. I suppose that means I'm stuck forcibly recruiting children."

It was a joke—he knew it was a joke and could even see why it might be funny. But with Seth so close...it wasn't funny. Harry didn't find it funny at all.

"You can't," Leah declared. "I work tomorrow afternoon. I might not even be home in time for supper."

"Yes, you will." Sue's tone left no room for argument. Leah would be home in time. "Looks like it's you and me, Seth."

"Cool."

"Just because Jacob's coming..." Leah rolled her eyes.

"You'd help if the twins were coming over," Seth pointed out. If he hadn't tried to steal the cucumber from Leah's plate at that moment, he might even have sounded reasonable.

"Just because their father does not seem to feel the need to invite them back home, doesn't mean you can get out of helping me," Sue warned her daughter.

"That's not fair," Harry protested. "Billy can't afford to pay for Rebecca to come back."

"And Rachel wouldn't come even if he asked."

Billy would have cringed at the certainty in Leah's voice; Harry did and Rachel wasn't even his daughter. Maybe because his daughter seemed to understand too well the desire to leave and never come back. But Harry had what Billy did not—Harry had Sue.

"If you," Sue warned their children, "Ever decided to run away from home, you better stick to the continental US, and you better come home from the holidays. Or I will hunt you down and bring you back. I don't care how little you don't like it here."

"I like it here," Seth chirped.

"Suck up," Leah said, snatching the turkey right out of his hands. "I like it here more."

"Not fair!"

Whether he was talking about Leah taking his food, or simply using the powers of the elder sibling to overwrite his claim, Seth retaliated by reaching for the cookies. The boy was not yet a werewolf. His mother beat him to them, putting the box out of his reach.

"Dessert, Seth," Sue said, trying not to sound too weary.

"Just one more? Please?"

"No."

"But I'm still feeling all hot."

The glare that Sue turned on her husband was very impressive. Harry found himself shrinking back into his chair. The boy looked fine; the stories from the other boys suggested he felt fine too, if a little crankier than usual. If only he hadn't wanted to get an extra cookie.

Fortunately, his daughter came to Harry's rescue.

Leah placed her hand on Seth's forehead, then snorted. "You don't have a temperature, dweeb. Stop trying to mooch the cookies."

Her brother stuck out his tongue at her, then looked sadly at Sue, who snorted. "Puppy dog eyes do not work on me."

Seth was a boy, not a puppy, not yet—Harry didn't let himself correct his wife. It would have made him sound crazy, though it might have helped him feel a little less guilty. Would Sue be persuaded by her son's pleading eyes when he was on all-fours? Would she even be able to see her son like that?

There was an ache in Harry's heart as he offered his daughter the last piece of turkey.


	5. 12:31:14

7:53 pm

* * *

"And that's it."

Harry nodded at Jacob, processing Sam's message. It wasn't particularly illuminating—the boys still couldn't eliminate the female vampire, but they were doing their best and they would get her, eventually. It was a just a matter of being patient; the boys might get hurt if they rushed and that was the last thing the Elders wanted.

It really wasn't necessary for Sam to send word to Harry every night, but Harry enjoyed being able to see that the boys were doing all right with his own eyes. Plus, he appreciated the gesture (Billy and Quil didn't get nightly updates, he knew) and the chance to feed the boys. Not that Jacob had asked for anything, when he arrived at the back door, but Harry had saved a few cookies from Seth and Jacob had devoured them gratefully.

Usually Sam sent Jared over. Harry preferred that, if only because the appearance of Jacob always reminded Harry of two problems he wasn't sure how to deal with. Was Jacob ever going to take charge, or were the stories wrong about that too? And how come Bella Swan knew about the Quileute shapeshifters and Sue did not?

Harry was happy that Bella Swan was getting better; if telling her a secret or two helped then Harry probably would have given Jacob his permission to tell her. Still, Sue did not know. She knew he was worried and stressed and that the nightmares had been particularly bad lately, but she did not know that it was only a matter of days before Seth disappeared for reasons she wouldn't be told.

There was the tiny hope that Emily would tell her once Seth vanished and Sue became desperate to find her baby boy, but Harry didn't expect it to happen. The girl had been silent when Sue frantically tried to stop the blood pouring from her face, demanding an explanation when Emily needed stitches to repair the damage that had been done. Emily would be silent now. She would be like Harry, keeping the secrets of the tribe, leaving Sue and Leah exposed to the danger that was a teenage boy with super strength and a short temper and a tendency to violence, no matter how many times Harry counselled otherwise.

They would have to figure it out themselves, because Harry wasn't strong enough to tell them that monsters were real. Or maybe, just maybe, Bella Swan...it was an idea. Charlie's daughter told the Quileutes about the vampires; maybe she would tell their wives and daughters about the werewolves.

Harry told the other Elders to leave Jacob alone, for letting Bella work out the truth, and he could admit to himself it was because of that hope, deep inside him. It went against everything he was to tell what he had sworn never to tell—but he could hope someone would tell Sue just the same.

"Thank you, Jacob," Harry told the boy.

He still thought boy, though Jacob could comfortably pass for somewhere over twenty. To see Jacob tower over him made Harry feel his age acutely. Or maybe that was just because he forgot his medication that morning. Whatever the reason, there was a sharp pain in his heart.

Seth was going to be next.

Harry had tried to raise a boy who was strong and brave and kind, but he wasn't finished just yet. Not yet. When you went to war at fourteen (or sixteen, or eighteen), all the wondrous, beautiful things inside you stopped growing, got buried under the pain and fear and horror of the battlefield. It took a long time to uncover them, afterwards, if you ever did.

Just because you looked old enough, didn't mean you were. No one was ever old enough to burn away part of themselves, but Harry thought it was the cruellest of tricks to call a group of boys men in order to get them to lay down their lives for you.

But like last time, the choice wasn't in his hands.

"Oh, and Sam said he wanted a meeting," Jacob said, trying to recall the message. "I think on Tuesday."

It was because Sam was his daughter's ex-boyfriend that Harry felt a stab of annoyance at being ordered around by a boy almost thirty years his junior. The boy's inexperience did not matter—he had spent weeks scared and alone because the Elders had failed him. He had earned Harry's respect. But cruelly toying with Leah's feelings (unintentionally, Harry knew, but he was a father and didn't care) meant the annoyance came despite Harry's respect.

Sitting beside Sam at council meetings and calling the man who had broken his daughter's heart, however unwillingly, Chief, made Harry want to have a drink. Leah was his daughter...he was supposed to protect her.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Leah burst into the kitchen. She took one look at Jacob and Harry, standing by the back door, and snorted.

"Did I miss when partial nudity became the new dress code? Because it's getting old."

Dismissive comment accomplished, she marched to the fridge to find leftovers.

There were few thoughts that ran through Harry's mind at the same time; his body might be breaking down, but his brain was as sharp as ever. One was that he really did need to speak to the boys about adapting a less revealing wardrobe—it wasn't professional. He thought, too, that he was getting old if his baby girl was using words like nudity in his presence without embarrassment. The anger he didn't much analyze, though it had something to do with knowing that Leah's comment was only because Jacob's attire mimicked Sam Uley's.

That Jacob opened his mouth to retaliate, but stopped when he glanced at Harry, made the older man smile. Even when they had superpowers, there was nothing more terrifying to a teenage boy than the father of teenage girl. All was as it should be.

Harry said: "I hope you don't think you're leaving the house like that, young lady."

Leah froze over the stove, where she was heating up some of Sue's soup. Ever so slowly she turned around, flipping her long hair over her shoulder like it was some kind of weapon. Or maybe it was just a diversionary tactic.

Hands on her hips, she demanded: "What's wrong with me?"

He was getting old, but Harry could still act quickly.

"Nothing, Leah. Your dress on the other hand..."

"It's cute."

It made her look like a woman, even though she was his daughter, his baby. Though he would take the secret to his grave, Harry Clearwater was scared of a dress.

Harry looked helplessly at Jacob, who was concentrating on scratching his arm like his life might depend on it. Seeing no help was going to be forthcoming, Harry begged:

"Change, Leah."

"Or what?" Leah asked. "Aren't you too busy with your stupid little half-naked boys club to worry about me?"

"Leah..." The werewolves needed guidance, but he wasn't allowed to tell her that. Why not? Never had the word tradition sounded hollow to Harry, but just at that moment he almost made an exception. Harry just sighed. "That's not fair."

"Hey, Jake, how many times have you talked to my dad in the past week?" she asked as she sat down at the kitchen table, bare back to her audience. Harry hadn't realized the 'dress' was that bad. Why had Sue gone to her book club meeting tonight? She would have known how to get through to their daughter.

"Less than you, Leah." Harry smiled gratefully at the young man, who continued: "And you could talk to him more if you stopped hanging around those freaky friends of yours."

"Aww...I'm so sorry you're glorious gang leader disapproves. Next time you try talking to me, try to have an independent thought, okay? It's such a shame that you kids can't think for yourself anymore."

Harry had been wondering why Sam had told Jacob to come over, despite his too close involvement with the vampires, and the bags under his eyes. He understood now. Leah was her mother's daughter—she could become vicious when hurt. The pack put her in a terrible mood.

But Jacob didn't rise to the bait. Leah's words, selected to cut, did not affect Jacob at all. He merely rolled his eyes and said:

"Why are you going out tonight, anyway? It's too cold to go down to the beach."

She pulled her dark hair over her shoulder as she turned her head to finally look at them. Playing with her hair, she seemed to deflate. "I'll put on a sweater, okay Dad?"

Harry knew this was the best he was going to get. If he tried to hold out for a complete new outfit he would be here all night. Besides...Leah was old enough to make most decisions herself (did it make him a bad father that he wished she still looked to him for guidance?).

At least, Seth was going to stay safely on the computer all night. It was too risky for him to leave. That was probably another reason Sam had sent Jacob; Seth would stay inside if Jacob asked him to. No one would be put in danger because of Seth.

And Leah would be safe, too. His daughter could take of herself, Harry thought proudly. If the past few months had shown him anything, it was that his formerly over-agreeable daughter was her mother's daughter, through and through. She was a survivor. Not to mention Sam owed her; she had a pack of werewolves watching over her. Nothing bad could happen to her.

"A thick sweater," Harry ordered.

Leah grinned, but quickly tried to hide it. "Done. Thanks, Dad. Do you know if we have any meat leftover?"

Her pleading tone spurred Harry into action, though Sue would have told him to make Leah get it herself. But he couldn't resist his daughter when she looked happy again.

As Harry went through the fridge to pull out the leftovers, he could hear Leah turning to talk to Jacob.

"Mini-Jacob wants to show you his new computer game, by the way."

"Cool. I hope he doesn't feel too bad when I beat him."

"Anyone ever tell you you're way over competitive much?"

"Look who's talking."

Leah laughed, acknowledging he was right. If only she had been a boy, Harry found himself thinking. He felt guilty for wanting his beautiful daughter to be something she was not, but there it was. If Leah had been a boy, she wouldn't have hesitated like Jacob was doing—she would have been in charge right now, all grace and determination. Not that Sam was a bad leader, but he lacked a certain adaptability that Harry found strange in a boy so young. Harry was an old fart; it was a shame, but he was stuck in his ways. Why was Sam the same?

But as Harry had seen firsthand, Leah adapted. Sympathetic and cruel, she would not be afraid of mercy or retribution. She would make the hard decisions, she could do what was required ("It's good to see you, Emily" she had said, even if it was too soon for her to really mean it yet). She might not work with Jacob with the same ease Seth would, one day, but they might have made an interesting team, if Leah had been a boy.

But she was not. She was wearing a dress and her future was bright. There were no battles in her life; she would see her brother hurt and would help him, but the pain would be second-hand. Something beautiful would endure untouched in his family, no matter how much blood Seth saw.

It was a small consolation, but Harry would take it.

"You still stalking Charlie's daughter?" Leah asked.

"I wasn't—I'm just looking out for her."

"Have you tried asking her out like a normal person?"

"She...she just got out of something pretty serious. I don't want to rush her."

"She dated a Cullen, didn't she? Geez, Jake, there's no way in hell she's going to go out with you. Have you seen the cars they drive? They probably cost more than your house. A girl with tastes like that is just out of your league."

Harry turned away from the microwave to find Jacob standing just behind his daughter, playing with the back of the chair while she sat sideways, looking up at him between spoonfuls of soup. Leah apparently didn't notice the way his fingers had curled tightly around the back of the chair. But Jacob wasn't shaking. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief but kept his eyes on the teenagers instead of the meat. If Jacob so much as quivered, he wanted him out of the house.

"Shut up, Leah. You don't know anything about her."

"Seriously, if she's like that, you could do better. She's not even that good looking, you know."

"You're such a snob."

"I'm not the one who won't date you because you don't own a car," Leah giggled to herself, a familiar sound that made Harry's heart swell. "Though not having a car is the least of your problems. Just so you know, taking a shower is okay, Jake. The big bad water won't hurt you."

"Says the girl who was afraid of the beach until she was twelve."

It was the wrong thing to say. Harry didn't understand why, but he saw the disaster coming in the way Jacob's eyes widened, in his apologetic expression, in Leah's hastily blinked away tears, in her next words:

"He told you that?"

She pushed the chair away from the table, not seeming to care that Jacob was in the way. The sound of splintering wood echoed through the small kitchen, as everyone stared at the chair that had flown apart upon meeting Jacob's side. Leah clutched her arm where splinter had scratched her bare skin, but the movement was unconscious. She was too busy staring at Jacob in horror.

"Why the hell can't you freaks leave me alone?"

And then she picked up the bowl of soup and dumped it on Jacob's head, the bowl crashing to the floor, the plastic bouncing harmlessly on the ground. She was out of the room in the next instant and the pounding footsteps and slamming door informed Harry that she wouldn't be coming out of her room any time soon.

With a fearful glance, Harry studied Jacob instead. Sam's faith had been justified. Though the boy shook violently as he wiped the carrot off of his face, there was no wolf in Harry's kitchen. That would have been interesting to try and explain.

Jacob looked down at the broken chair as he brushed the soup from his hair. "Sorry about the chair."

Harry sighed. "It's all right. Is the soup too hot?"

"Nah, she didn't bother waiting until it was hot. Tell Sue it's really good," Jacob said, already back to normal, cracking jokes.

"Sure, sure."

"Hey, Harry? I'm real sorry. I just can't remember what I know and he knows and—"

"It's all right, Jacob."

It wasn't all right, though. When Sam Uley—bright, responsible, hard-working Sam—had been dating his daughter, Harry had made himself feel better by telling himself they would probably get married anyway. But now...that wasn't going to happen. Yet the memories still existed. Harry wanted to know if they had been accidently shared with the rest of the boys, if the next generation of men in La Push had all seen his daughter at her most vulnerable but...Harry was too scared that the answer would be yes.

He couldn't take a shotgun to them all, for violating her that way. Part of him said he should anyway, that they couldn't be allowed to just take Leah's most private moments and share them like trading cards. Not that he believed it of Sam, but if there was no privacy then the Alpha really didn't have a choice.

Trying not to think about his sobbing daughter, Harry said, "I'm impressed you didn't phase."

"Thanks. It's getting a lot easier lately." Jacob slowly chewed some of the rice he had scraped of his chest. "Hey, Harry? Why haven't you told her?"

"It's against the rules, Jacob." Just because the boy didn't believe in following them, didn't mean an Elder could ignore them. "We can't tell."

A speculative look came over Jacob's face. "If I had accidently phased, though, we—"

"You should go talk to Seth. And Jacob? No one's going to believe you accidently phased—unless it's really accidently, and that's not a good idea. Remember Emily."

She was Sue's relative, but Harry had known her since she was born. He hated how Emily had become a cautionary tale instead of the playful sweet girl who always remembered to take a snack down to the shed when she was over. But Jacob shivered and nodded, because Emily had only half a face left and that's all most of them could see.

Before Jacob walked upstairs to see Seth, he said, "I still think she deserves to know."

And then Jacob was gone, leaving Harry alone, nodding to himself in the kitchen.

She did deserve to know. Leah deserved to know why her father spent his days talking to Sam's friends and not his own daughter. She deserved to know why Sam left her for her cousin, despite his promises, despite her love, despite Emily's horror. She deserved to know why her younger brother who looked at her like she hung the moon was growing taller by the day and was going to leave her to be with a man she might very well hate at this point.

But Harry couldn't tell her.

Not just because it was against the rules and Harry loved his father and his forefathers and wouldn't defy them. She was his daughter. The nightmares were bad enough when they woke him up, when they got so bad he woke up Sue in his terror—even Leah's pain was nothing compared to his own horror at the thought of telling her about them.

Jacob's idea circled around his head. He wouldn't even have to tell Leah. He could show Sue...she would make her daughter understand without being bound to their laws. That way his wife would stop resenting the way Harry seemed to choose his duty over their daughter.

It was too dangerous, of course. Harry remembered going with Sue to see Emily that night—he hadn't slept for weeks after the fact. La Push was his safe place; blood was not supposed to pour from innocents here in Washington the way it had over there.

If only there was a way to tell them without telling them how bad it could get.

Harry's heart was heavy as he headed out of the kitchen, towards his daughter's bedroom. Hopefully, he would be able to repair whatever damage had been caused.

Jacob and Seth were coming down the stairs, heading towards the television in the living room. Harry paid them little attention, knowing that they would be able to entertain themselves, beyond an amused smile at the shirt Jacob had borrowed from Seth. When his son finished growing, they would have to buy him a new wardrobe. It didn't look comfortable wearing clothing that many sizes smaller.

Harry had just made it to Leah's bedroom door, when it opened in front of him. His daughter's defiant expression was the only thing Harry saw before she was pushing past him, heading downstairs. She had put on a sweater and boots and was paying no attention to her father whatsoever.

"Where are you going?" Harry demanded.

"Out. Bye, Dad."

"Leah!'

"Say hi to Sam for me," she snarled and then slammed the door behind her.

That's not fair, he longed to shout after her, but she had figured that life lesson out for herself.

Instead, he made his way back downstairs to the couch and lay down, too tired to stay standing. Seth looked up from his controller to ask: "You going to stay here, Dad?"

Right. Parents weren't cool after the age of nine. How could he have forgotten that? He heaved himself out of the chair and headed to his room. There would be a book in there that he could read. The words would drive out the memories the way they always had.

It helped. Even though _Heart of Darkness_ was filled with horror, it helped. The horror in the story was not his own so it helped.


	6. 10:08:55

10:16 pm

* * *

Sue woke him from his accidental nap when she put her book down on the dresser with a little more force than necessary. The women in the book club were not favorites of hers, but she had promised to go and so go she would. Even with the scowl on her face, Harry couldn't help smiling to himself, amazed he had such a beautiful wife.

"Leah wasn't in her room."

"She went out."

"Do you know where?"

"She'll call if she's in trouble."

"She's looking for trouble, Harry. Those friends of hers..." his wife trailed off as she slipped under the sheets. "I'm worried about her."

He took her hand in his. "She's a smart girl. We have to trust her now."

And he did trust his daughter. He knew her. There was a smart head on her shoulders. She would come home all right.

"Seth was still playing video games when I got in. Jacob wouldn't let me drive him home."

"He's grown up lately."

"He's sixteen, Harry," Sue snapped. "He may have gone through the growth spurt of the century, but he's just a kid. He shouldn't be running around La Push after dark. Remember the bears? It's not safe. But I turned around to grab my keys and he just took off. I didn't even hear him leave. And I looked but...it's not safe. Tell Billy to talk to him."

At the rate he was progressing, in six months time Jacob might just be the most dangerous creature in the state. He could certainly handle himself if anyone was foolish enough to try to attack him. With the display in the kitchen, Harry suspected that he might even be able to control phasing when attacked. The boy was adapting very well to the transformation.

All Harry said was:

"He'll be fine. Leah pushed a chair into him and he was fine."

"The chair?"

"I'll make another one tomorrow."

Sue swore quietly in the darkness. "I'll talk to her tomorrow."

"Don't be too hard on her," Harry advised. "She was doing all right. It was just a small slip."

"She can't let her temper run away with her like that."

If it was just her temper, Harry would have been furious as well. But though Leah had been shouting, Harry knew it was just to cover up the hurt. He wasn't about to yell at his daughter for being upset. He couldn't do that.

"A wise man once said, 'Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.' Let her be angry, sometimes, Sue. It's better for her than the bitterness."

In the darkness, Sue laughed. "Considering how much you love saying that quote to me, you would think you would remember Maya Angelou was a woman one of these times, Harry." Curling closer to him, she asked, "Do you remember the first time you said that to me?"

Of course he remembered. He had been working in his shed (like he had since he had gotten back, because when he carved the wood the screaming in his head stopped for a second), trying his best to be left alone. Since his return to La Push, he spent most of his time in the building in the backyard of his parents' home. It had taken him and Peter over three years to force themselves to go back to where they had been born after being discharged, but once they had gotten there, Harry found the taste of booze was less appealing than carving alone and so they had gone their separate ways. Trying to capture the stories in the pieces of fallen wood he had collected required all his concentration. Harry didn't like being disturbed.

And then in walked Sue.

He didn't recognize her. She had been a child of eight when he had left and now she was a child of thirteen, whose adult clothing just served to highlight how young she really was. The skin-tight, low-cut top that proved she had hit puberty didn't hide the baby fat that clung to her still. And nothing hid the bruise on her cheek; she wasn't trying to hide it. Her eyes were so hard Harry didn't demand she explain her presence in his sanctuary. All he did was say:

"Can I help you?"

But she wasn't paying attention; she was running her hands over the masks on the wall. "Far out. I like this one," she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "You've got some talent, man."

"Thank you...?"

"It's not worth staying in here all day, but I dig it. Hey, you're building a canoe?"

"I'm building lots of things."

"I can see that. You got a minute?" He nodded, putting down the knife and turning to face her. There was something about her, even then—it was impossible not to pay attention to her. "I can't find my brother and I figured you'd be the person to ask about that."

"I'm sorry. I...do I know your brother?"

"Half-brother, then," she snapped. "I can't believe you...you just don't know who I am, do you?"

"You're Peter's sister," he finally realized. "Susie."

"Sue."

"You're older than I thought you were. He had your picture with him until—"

He lost it in the mud one day, when the earth had come up and tried to drown him in it during a fifty-seven hour firefight. When he told Harry about that battle Peter was stone-faced when he talked about the villagers and what happened to them when the Americans finally got through and he was stoic when he talked about all the friends that ended up in the ground that day with pieces blown right off them. But Peter bawled like a child when he talked about the picture of his little sister he had lost in the mud.

"You okay, man? You..."

"I don't know where he is. I'm sorry." Peter had invited him along on his most recent bender, but the canoe had called to Harry and he hadn't gone. She would be waiting a long time if she was looking for Peter to come back; when he wanted to disappear, he tried for weeks at a time.

"Oh." Without thinking, her hand went to her cheek, protecting her face from a blow that hadn't come yet—or had come too many times to count in the past. The last thing Peter had done before they shipped out was beat the crap out of his father. Harry remembered standing outside Peter's father's house, trying to balance the heavy bag on his back, waiting for his friend while the sounds of the fight echoed through the neighborhood. Apparently it hadn't been enough.

"He'll find his way back."

"No he won't." She was right, though neither knew it yet. "I should have known—who's dumb enough to count on him?"

The bitterness poured from her; she had a right, he knew, but her pain cut him too deeply. One of the guys in his unit—they called him Skipper and it was only when he died that Harry realized he'd never asked what his real name was—had this book of quotes he would read sometimes, while they waited for some new hell, trying to inspire them. The words echoed in Harry's head until gunshots drowned them out. Now the words drowned out the gunshots only he could hear.

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.'"

"What?"

He didn't know why the words had come back to him. He shrugged and let her go.

But when the darkness came and all he could see were the colors on her cheek, Harry left his shed and drove to a bar in Port Angeles where Peter often went and brought him back to La Push. Only half-sober, Peter made sure to remind his father that there were certain rules that had to be followed, whether he was in town or not.

Sue started visiting him after that, though Harry never told her he had tried to help. Maybe she really did like the masks, though she later told him she hated the smell of the workshop. But he never threatened to kick her out even if she was in his way and she liked that about him.

For Christmas one year, Peter gave him a watch, engraved with the words: "Patience is the companion of wisdom." No matter how bad he got, it was impossible to write Peter off—he remembered what Harry used to whisper to himself in the dark to try to endure the waiting even though it had been years. When he showed the watch to Sue, she had blushed, a little, and said her brother had gotten something right, for once. Part of him realized then that she didn't just see him as an extension of her older brother, but that part of Harry was buried under the pain, so he just thanked her for the compliment and went back to work as she wandered around the room.

With a shrug of her shoulders, she told him once that he was just going to talk anyway. He might as well have someone around to listen. It took a while, but Harry eventually learned she liked the old stories the best. Not many people knew them, fewer knew them in Quileute, so Harry didn't have to wonder why she had to come to him if she wanted to talk about the past. If he sometimes understood it was just the excuse she used, he forgot when the nightmares came.

Not that Sue loved the past the same way Harry did; she never worshipped it as her last refuge. When Harry was made an Elder, Sue just rolled her eyes and demanded, "Isn't twenty-four awfully young to be an Elder?"

"Yes, but it's tradition. After my father—"

"It's stupid," she said, matter-of-factly. "Why can't we ever appoint someone who actually does more than just sit around talking to the damn Council? I mean, you're you…no one talks as well as you when you remember where you are so of course you should be talking but the rest of them...they're just too damn stupid to figure out a solution to anything so they just pretend they're listening to your stories."

"Sue, that's not fair."

"Sorry. I forgot—life is always fair."

She was a bit right about the Council; they had appointed him, but while he was supposed to be the prodigal son, Harry knew he was more of a lost boy. It wasn't the right thing to do, yet they clung to tradition and buried their heads in the sand.

No matter how many black eyes Sue had, they said it wasn't their business. Sue herself forbade him from calling the cops ("like they'll believe the Indian girl with the reputation over her parents; plus, Eric might try and get them to lock Peter up if the fuzz shows, so don't you dare, Harry Clearwater"). Since she was right—men from Forks would say it wasn't their problem and the men from La Push didn't want to upset her father—Harry just gave her all the words he had since he couldn't help her any other way.

Even though Harry stayed away from people then (it took a long time before he didn't resent them for never seeing what he had, even though he mostly knew it wasn't their fault he had listened to Peter, who really had believed the army was the only way out for guys like them) he heard the words others spoke about her. Jealousy, he mostly thought, because there was no denying she was beautiful—the boys didn't like that she usually didn't return their interest and the girls didn't like that she sometimes did smile back at the boys. So they called her names and let rumors spread.

Peter laughed at all of it.

"You need to come out with me more, man," he told Harry, as they watched Billy Black work on Peter's beat up old car. "You've got to hear what they're saying about you now."

"Can't be worse than what they're saying about you."

It just made Peter laugh more. Not like before the war, when he found everything funny, but because he had to laugh at everything now or he got confused about whether he was here or there.

"Yeah, but all that's true, man. They don't need to make up anything about me."

His eyes were sad and heavy; he was going down the only road he thought was still open to him and the worst thing was that he knew it was a dead end. He just didn't think there was another way, so he kept marching forward, because if there was one thing he had learned how to do it was march.

"So it's not true?" Billy asked, just eighteen but the best mechanic on the rez.

With an easy shove, Peter forced the young boy back under the hood. "Of course it's not true. If it was true, I'd have stuck him."

"What?" They were blood brothers, after all. Harry would have trusted Peter with his life, anytime; it was almost unbelievable to hear him threaten it. "What are they saying?"

"Nothing," Peter assured him. "Bullshit."

"Dad would have kicked you off the Council if people really believed it. Probably."

"Shut up, kid," Peter ordered. "It's nothing, Harry."

Before, it had come easily to him, understanding the way people hurt and feared, so easily that he had run away as soon as Peter of thought of a way to do it. Now, it took Harry a long moment to determine what would make Peter angry enough to threaten his brother, but what would make Billy smirk, even as he pretended he didn't believe it.

When he stumbled across an idea, he hoped he was wrong. Not just because…

"She's so young..."

"And a stone fox."

Harry caught Peter's arms, wrestled with him a bit and saved Billy from the beating of his life. Since there was only one empty beer bottle on the porch, Peter was sober enough that he let Harry win (they didn't like fighting much, anymore). When they ended up in the dirt, Harry pulled out some smokes and Peter accepted, gratefully.

"The biggest liar in the world is They Say," Harry quoted. It didn't make him less angry. The gossip stung, yes, but he was more furious with those who believed and had done nothing. What would it take for them to try to protect her? She was such a wonderful young woman, but they just spread their rumors and did nothing to help. "I can't believe the way people talk, man. She just likes looking at the masks."

"I can't believe you got her hooked on that crap."

"What crap?"

"All that earth spirit, wolf mojo crap of yours. Susie took my old AIM shirt, man; she's getting militant about it. As if Red Power is anything but a joke."

"Maybe it won't always be."

Peter sighed. He knew firsthand that believing things could change just broke your heart.

"You really think it'll be different one day? You think there's ever going to be a war where we won't be first in line? Dream on, man."

Both of them jumped with Billy slammed the hood of the car down. Both of them reached for guns they no longer dared keep on themselves.

For his time Billy made twice what he would have if he had actually worked in a shop. Peter was always generous—it's why he offered Harry a bottle of something special after Billy cleared off. When Harry warned Peter he made it too strong, all Peter did was laugh.

Despite what they said, Harry never did tell Sue to stay away. The shed was about having a safe place to retreat; Sue understood that. He couldn't make her leave.

And while he was grateful when she started coming around with friends and anyone, really, who would come with her, it had less to do with the rumors than his dawning realization that she was Peter's sister, not his. So Harry focused his attention on helping her force feed her new political agenda to whoever she brought with her. She made them listen to the stories he told and then she'd make them talk about them, talk about all the old traditions that she sometimes mocked and sometimes adored, but always had to be talking about. It was a phase, one she grew out of and one that stuck with her the rest of her life.

To Sue, who had learned to believe in her own power, it was inconceivable that any group, especially one she belonged to, couldn't be powerful too if only they could find a way to make their voices heard.

And maybe her sons wouldn't have to lay down their lives for someone else's fight.

Technically, the war didn't kill Peter. The trees did, when he crashed into them at seventy miles an hour. He was twenty-six, had been discharged for over five years and the only people that missed him, really, were his sixteen year old half-sister and Harry (who everyone said was a little touched in the head).

The cops called Sue to identify him, since there wasn't much else in the wreckage that could help. Peter hadn't worn his dog tags since they got discharged; he mailed them home for his little sister to have. There was no one else (his mom was long dead and their father...) so Sue volunteered, but she needed a ride to Forks so Harry drove her. It was the first time she had ever been to the hospital and he couldn't let her go in alone. There was finally the mangled corpse they had always expected to become and Harry threw up in the middle of the hospital. Sue didn't say one word the entire drive back.

But when he stopped in front of her house, she turned her tearstained face in his direction and demanded: "No pithy quote for this?"

All Harry could think about was the time Casper went to take a piss and stepped on a mine and they couldn't find all the pieces of him to bury. When he told Peter about it, later, somewhere in California, Peter had grabbed Skipper's book from Harry (Harry borrowed in the night before Skipper died and didn't have the strength to give it back to a corpse) and opened the pages and read out a quote—and then laughed until he cried himself to sleep.

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake."

"We don't even believe in God," Sue needlessly reminded him. Maybe that's why it was funny. Maybe it was funny because Casper ended up in pieces, not in peace.

She didn't get out of the car so Harry started driving, the way he had when they first got back to the States, just him and Peter trying to drive away from the memories. Somewhere on the way to wherever Harry was going he stopped the car and threw up in the bushes. His insides wanted to be outside and he wasn't sure but he thought he might have been jealous of the mess Peter had made because at least it was something. Sue came to get him after a while, made him lie down on the hood of the car and gave him her jacket when he started shivering like mad.

When she started crying again, he tried to give it back, but she wouldn't take it so he wrapped his arms around her instead.

This time she was the one who talked, telling Harry about all the birthdays that would have passed unnoticed if Peter hadn't shown up, about all the things she learned and saw because her half-brother didn't care that she sometimes was embarrassed by the way they said bastard (especially the way she learned not to care about the whispers either), about the way she learned not to let someone else's mistakes and failures make her think there was something wrong with her. She told him all that and when she had freed all the words inside of her and let go of all of the tears, Harry told her to lie down in the back seat of the car to try to get some sleep.

He went through three packs that night, missing Peter, missing himself, before he remembered that missing something wouldn't bring it back and there was still work for him to do. When Sue woke up, she sat down beside him, trying to hide her red eyes.

"How did you sleep out here?"

"I can't always sleep." Peter was the only one who had known, but now Peter was dead. "Sometimes I can't sleep at all, except in the shed."

"We should get back. I can't...I can't leave the funeral arrangements to Eric."

"Sure."

"Hey, Harry?" Her lips were soft against his cheek, before she slipped off the hood and into the passenger seat. "Thanks for staying awake."

Harry pulled himself together long enough to help her through the funeral; it was a small affair, but too much for just one person to handle. Sue finally moved out the day after they buried her brother, stayed up in Makah with some of her family and he saw her less. When she came by after, she didn't wait for whatever story came to him; she asked for what she wanted and he tried to give it to her. When she asked him about the war he tried...but when he couldn't, she asked about her brother instead, what they had been like before, kids with no future in a tiny dying town, and after, soldiers driving around the country, cashing in on their medals and the scars.

Sometimes she laughed and sometimes she didn't. When she wasn't around, Harry went to town and one day discovered he wasn't pretending to pay attention, he actually was. The Council asked his opinion and he was careful about his words when he told them what he thought, but they were no longer just the carefully scripted words of someone else, they were his own. Sometimes he was alive, really and truly. Not all the times, but sometimes, more and more.

Some nights he didn't have nightmares.

Some nights he did.

And then one day Sue burst into his shed for the final time, unannounced but still acting as if she belonged there.

"I got in!" That was all he heard before she threw her arms around him. He hadn't stood up to greet her (he thought she was in Makah until the weekend) and so she sat herself down on his lap as he tried to return her hug and get the carving knife as far away from her as possible. "Look, Harry. They want me."

She was grinning, like the child she had never really been, showing off her acceptance letter. Becoming an RN had been her idea, though she generously credited him with inspiring her, but now it was more than a dream.

"Congratulations." It wasn't that she was beautiful, though she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, it was the way her eyes shone, proud and determined but never haughty. When he drifted away, sometimes, she always called him back. Life could have made her hard and brittle, but it had made her strong and gentle instead. All she wanted to do was help. No wonder he was in awe of her. Words came to his lips, unbidden. "A wise man once said, 'The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.'"

"Not today," she said, springing off of him. "Please, Harry, not today. Be _here_, today. I want you to be here with me. I don't want to listen to some male WASP, I want to talk to you."

"Ferdinand Foch was French."

She snorted, rolled her eyes, tossed her hair. "Really? That's what you want to say to me?"

After all the years she had spent listening to him, he couldn't believe she still didn't understood.

"It doesn't matter, Sue, who said it. All that matters is that someone, somewhere on this earth, found truth in a few seemingly random words. Every quote, every story...whoever the first speaker was...truth is the same, no matter how you say it. And you can't kill truth. It's the one thing you can find everywhere, even in the places where you thought nothing good could exist. I like the quotes because they say what I mean when I can't. Whenever I feel something so big I'm almost frightened, they remind me I'm not alone. There's someone who felt it too. They even said it better."

"Describing the perfect weapon is saying it better?" she asked, deciding to punish him by pretending to be obtuse.

He got off the stool as he pleaded with her to understand. "I told you once that anger burned. Remember? Do you remember or were you too young?"

"Shut up, Harry. I remember."

It wasn't a foolish question. Between thirteen and seventeen eternity resided. He didn't argue.

"I think you might always be on fire, but I think that's what makes you so wonderful. I've never seen anyone as passionate as you are—or as powerful. Weapons don't just destroy; one of the first things they teach us is that the right weapon can save your life. I can see you...you're going to help so many people, Sue. You're extraordinary and they're lucky to have you." A smile played across his face. "There's some truth—and in my own words, too. How was that?"

"Harry..." She blinked back the tears, but her dark eyes still sparkled. "Oh, Harry Clearwater, the first thing I'm going to do after I become a nurse is marry you."

"What?" But she didn't let him back away, just stepped forward, grabbed his hands, held him. "But I'm—I'm—I'm far too...you...I'm too...I'm too...old."

She laughed in his face. "You're not _that_ much..." She just shrugged. "Who cares? I don't care what they say, as long as I'm happy. Be happy with me."

"I can't...I can't...I—I still can't always sleep at night."

"I don't care."

He told her a story then, about a time when Peter had brought him to Oregon while they were on their quest home and he met a beautiful woman who made him smile like he hadn't in a while. And one night—he was asleep, he hadn't meant to, but she had a black eye the next day, so Peter and he left and Harry began to long for the solitude of the little shed behind his house.

"Let me help you, then."

"I won't hurt you."

"You won't. You're so much better than you were when you first got back. If you let me, I'll help make sure you keep getting better. You don't have to stay in here forever. You've punished yourself for surviving for long enough."

"I..."

"Besides," she said, bringing his hands to her hips. "Don't you ever get tired of touching nothing but trees?"

"That's not…"

"Fair?" She asked, holding his gaze, lifting her shirt right over her head. Bare from the waist up, she stepped forward into his arms. "It's also not fair of you to keep watching me if you don't really want me. It gets my hopes up."

He had forgotten how soft a woman could feel against him. But no matter how beautiful she was, no matter how badly he wanted to keep holding her (it scared him a little, how badly he suddenly needed her), Harry only said:

"I couldn't survive hurting you."

"Good. So it means you won't. I know," she interrupted him. "I know it's not that easy. That's why we'll take baby steps. We'll pretend that I don't already know we're going to get married one day and be insanely happy and make everyone crazy jealous. Why don't you just let me stay with you, tonight? And we'll see what happens."

"Somehow, I bet you knew what was going to happen before you even walked through that door today."

"Maybe." The smile on her face seemed connected to his heart; the larger it grew, the lighter Harry felt. "Now kiss me already."

Who was he to deny her?

Later, he told she should have been a fortune teller. She laughed and told him he was the only person she understood, but that was okay. He could be understanding for the both of them. Harry agreed (he would have agreed with her about anything, really, as long as she kept smiling like that). He even told her he thought he would be okay with being forced to marry her, which made her laugh and got her kissing him again. With his head against her chest and her fingers running through his hair, Harry found his eyes drifting close, but she didn't seem to mind.

The nightmares didn't come.

It wasn't the end of them, of course. Most days were good days, but there were still bad days, here and there. But he never laid a hand on her, even accidentally, and Harry was content with that. Harry tried his best to have courage and patience, but at the end of the day...he trusted Sue would be there to help him. And she was.

"I love you," Harry told his wife of over twenty years. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he said, "Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?"

"You old horndog," she muttered, but she kissed him, even as she laughed. "I'm sorry about what I said in the kitchen. I know you don't think this family is unimportant. I just had a long day and was looking for someone to blame."

"I'm sorry I took so long to come and help you."

"I…I know there's something bothering you, Harry. It's okay, if you want to be alone."

"I don't." It took him a long while to understand, but he had learned, eventually. "I don't want to be alone. I want to be with you."

When they first came together, in the shed in the backyard of the house his ancestors had built, Harry had been in awe of her softness and her strength. He thought, too, that there was no place he would rather lay his head than against Sue's chest. Deeper thoughts were beyond him, as he basked in his own happiness for the first time in a long time.

"It's true," Harry discovered, as she absently drew symbols on his back. "What they say. 'Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.'"

"That was pretty enough that you can say it again, if you want," Sue relented, her voice light, tired but content. "Fine. I admit it. I dig the dead white guys, too."

"Zora Neale Hurston was a black woman, so there."

"Aw, Harry, you really do love me."

"You and your very loud heartbeat. Even if it is stopping me from falling asleep right now."

Her laughter shook her whole body: "I have decided, Harry, that I am going to love you until the last beat of my very loud heart. So there."

"Okay. As long as I get to love you even after the last beat of mine."


	7. 5:17:40

3:07 am

* * *

Harry slipped out of bed when he heard the car pull up in front of the house, careful not to wake his wife. It was too difficult nowadays to sleep through the night—his dreams were filled with blood and earth. His waking moments were filled with thoughts of fangs and vampires and that was somehow worse, so Harry got himself out of bed and went to meet his daughter.

Children should not come home at any time that had 'am' after it, but the uncomfortable reality was that Leah was no longer a child, not even close. Even though Sue had wanted to mount a search party around twelve, Leah was much older than both her parents had been when they had left their homes. Leah wasn't in danger, even Sue could admit that. Leah just didn't want to come home. So the search party had been called off and Sue had fallen into a fitful sleep and Harry could do nothing.

Nothing but wait—nowadays he was uncomfortably good at that.

Seth's door was open and as Harry walked past his son's room a tired voice called to him: "Do I have to get up now?"

The tiny bed almost couldn't contain his boy anymore. Not that it had ever been enough, but now Harry's meagre offering had been turned into a joke. Seth's ankles hung over the edge. If he had kept the blanket on, his feet wouldn't have been able to fit under it. But the blanket was on the floor, tossed off as his son became a supernatural heating unit.

Seth shouldn't have a bad time of it, Harry reassured himself. Unlike Sam, he had a whole group to guide him through the transformation. Harry was grateful that Jacob was one of those boys; his son would happily follow his role model into the world of the supernatural. And Seth had always been a cheerful child, rarely resorting to anger; he wouldn't find each moment a struggle to control his temper. No, his boy would happily enjoy his newfound powers with his newfound friends.

Harry could come up with all sorts of reasons not to worry; he just couldn't make himself believe any of them. The face framed by the buzzed hair was just as innocent and beautiful as ever, so youthful that Harry found himself smiling.

"No, Seth. Go back to sleep."

"Okay," he agreed happily. Then he turned over and summoning his teenaged-superpowers, Seth returned to whatever pleasant dreamworld he had previous inhabited. Harry closed the door, not wanting to disturb his son further.

Leah was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. She even had the decency to look ashamed.

"Hi, Dad."

Harry said nothing—it wasn't always the time for words, especially not when his wife and son were asleep upstairs—just walked past her, out the front door. The porch light was still on, so Harry settled himself on the steps and waited. In a minute, Leah joined him. Her arms were tight around her, holding her sweater in place as she settled on the step beside him. There was a gap between them, but Harry said nothing about that for now.

"Where have you been, Leah?"

"Around." Her voice was hard, though she didn't dare look up. "I'm not drunk and I didn't do drugs. You can't be mad at me."

"I'm your father, Leah," he explained. "I'm never mad at you. I'm worried, all of the time, and hurt some of the times, but I'm never angry with you. I love you too much."

"Has anyone ever told you it sucks trying to fight with you?"

"Your mother has occasionally mentioned it, yes." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The smell of alcohol and smoke drifted from her, but her eyes were mostly clear. She wasn't even trying anything dangerous. She simply didn't want to be around her family anymore and that hurt Harry most of all.

He could only ask her not to do it again.

"A wise man once said, 'Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.' I might not be the best to fight with, but your mother forgives me. I hope you can to, because you can't get rid of me."

"Not even if I tried?"

"Nope."

He made his daughter smile, for a minute, and that was triumph enough for Harry. Anything that interrupted her pain was welcome. When her smile faded, she laid her head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry I was out so late. But I had to wait until someone could drive me home and it took forever."

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change," Harry quoted.

"Who said I wanted to change?"

"All I'm asking you to change is what time you get home at because I'm getting too old to keep waiting up for you."

"You don't have to wait up, old man." The curious thing about being a father, Harry had found, was that there were many things you had to do, though they never felt like obligations. Evidentially, Leah realized he couldn't not wait up for her for she changed the subject. "So who said that, anyway?"

"I don't know. They were still right."

"I won't do it again."

"No, you won't. You're grounded. Until we say otherwise. Okay?"

"You're not supposed to ask my permission. That's the whole point."

"Sorry."

They sat in silence for a while, watching the stars as they danced above the trees, pinpricks of light that always brought Harry comfort. Truth wasn't the only thing you could find in the darkness—there were stars, too. There was beauty some nights, even if you sometimes forgot.

"He told them," Leah finally muttered. There were tears in her eyes, tears she was too tired to hide. "He was the only one I ever told and he promised and..." Harry could only rub circles against his daughters back while she tried not to cry against him. "He told Jacob. He doesn't even _know_ Jacob, not really, and he told him. And he promised, he promised..."

Harry would have given up his position on the council, his house, and his very life for words to mend his daughter's broken heart. But no words came. Instead, he could only watch over her as the tears ran down her face, could only wait until she discovered the strength inside of her and raised her gaze to meet his. Nothing was ever easy and Leah was not the fighter her mother was. She was too much of a dreamer, too much his daughter as Sue liked to say, to simply decide to overcome her own pain. She could redirect it, turn it into something else, but she couldn't push past it like it was nothing. She felt too deeply.

That's why she placed her head against her father's chest. A broken voice murmured into his chest: "Why are you taking his side?"

The pain in his heart intensified. "Leah, that's not—I have to talk to him. I have no choice. The Council thinks he might be the next chief, so I have to...but I'm not on his side. If there were sides to be on, I'd be on yours."

There were no sides—the men Harry had killed wanted to fight as little as he did. Before, he didn't always see life like that. Harry thought his father was against him and the rest of the town just didn't understand what to do with a boy with big dreams. That's why he left, because he thought it was him against the world. And in a far off country, Harry learned he had been very, very wrong.

If the war had been good for anything, it was succeeding at impressing on Harry that they were all the same. When Harry witnessed, more times than he wanted to, the horror on a stranger's face before he (or she—those nightmares were the worst) died, it was all too familiar. They may have been born in different continents and worn different clothing, but whatever language they spoke, everyone everywhere looked the same to Harry, in death. Seeing his feelings in the eyes of the enemy had left Harry with a very puzzling question—how could anybody, ever, think they were different at all?

But his daughter was not concerned with abstracts, in understanding the truth it had taken years for Harry to understand. Leah pulled away, her mind whirling with specifics even though it was late and she should have been asleep. She still saw life as a battle against other people—and she wanted to win.

"But if there was a chief, it should be Billy, shouldn't it? If we decided throwbacks were cool, it should be Billy. You always said—that doesn't make sense. Why Sam?"

"It's not for certain, yet. We're just discussing it. And Billy's old." It pained him to admit that about his contemporary, but it was the only excuse he could come up with.

"Then it should be you. Right? Because your grandmother was Ephraim Black's daughter and he's the big important dude. Plus, you're married to Mom and since she's related to the Ateara's...it should be you. If Billy didn't want it."

"Very good," he burst out. He couldn't help it. He never thought she had paid any attention to his lessons on their family tree. It was nice to see she had listened to him sometimes. "You're right. And if it had to be one of the younger generation, it should be Jacob's by right."

"Then the twins, then Seth, then me, then...I guess Sam would be after that, though Quil Ateara could probably make a pretty convincing argument."

"That was wonderful, Leah."

But she didn't share his joy. Bitterness crept through her. "But the other boys are too young and me and the twins are girls, right? So we don't matter."

They mattered too much. The boys protected the tribe; the girls _were_ the tribe. Not only for the children they would bear, or the stories they would tell, but for the beauty and grace they brought into the world. Men with arrows and men with guns and men with claws would fight other men and leave them dead, in spirit if not in body. Yet their homes still stood, safe and precious, and maybe at home they could heal and be well once more.

Something had to survive from the trials unbloodied and beautiful. It was the only consolation. In order to fight, there had to be something to fight for. Otherwise everything was lost.

Maybe that's why he hadn't told them.

It would have enraged Sue, who never liked having her power questioned. Harry was not afraid to admit his wife was strong, stronger than he was—it was why he loved her so very much. But just once, it would be nice to protect her from something the way no one had ever been able to before.

And Leah was simply not the fighter Seth was.

She was older and bigger so she won most of their scuffles, but that was irrelevant. His daughter tried to be like her mother, tried to put on a barbed tongue in order to respond to the unfairness she saw in the world. Maybe it was Harry's fault, but Leah couldn't fight the way Sue could. She couldn't become as hard as she had to and then take off her armour at the end of the day. Leah had to become as steely as Sue pretended she was in order to take a stand. Leah hadn't learned there was a difference between acting hard and being hard and until she did her anger was too much like bitterness to be good for her.

But Seth was, above all things, his mother's son, though Harry suspected only he saw it. Yes, the boy loved the stories Harry told, was even more easily distracted than his father and was rarely spotted with anything but a smile on his face (could his face even form Sue's trademark scowl? No one was certain). But Seth saw the world as it could be all of the time and didn't understand why it wasn't like the way he imagined it. He saw absolutes in a way Harry never could, just as quickly as Sue did. Leah was willing to compromise and in the middle of the battle there was no time for thinking. There was only you and the belief that what you were doing mattered—and while it was beautiful to watch Leah grow and stretch and become, Seth would be the better fighter because he would be sure of where he stood. Always.

It was not in Harry to say whether one was better than the other. His children simply were. Harry loved them both. While both of them had a determination in them that was foreign to Harry, he did not think less of Seth for having more of it, or less of Leah for wanting more than she had. It just was what it was.

He had no choice about what would happen to Seth, but Harry had a choice about Leah. So he would keep her in the dark. And he would keep her safe.

But he would not allow her to think she did not matter.

"It has nothing to do with any of you and everything to do with Sam himself. And Jacob, maybe." It was more than he should have said, but Harry couldn't help it. "But Sam can be more without you being less."

"You saying stuff like that is the reason Seth sucks at math so bad," Leah informed him. "And I have no idea you're saying."

"Sometimes things are just the way they are. But if it'll make you feel better, I can scowl when I talk to Sam."

"You're not funny," she said as she wiped her eyes, but there was a smile on her face. "I would like that."

"Done," he promised. "Though you're still grounded."

"Daaaaaaaad..."

"A wise man once said, 'Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.'"

"Even in a whiny voice?"

"Especially in a whiny voice. Now go to bed."

"I'm not tired."

"Would you like a story?"

"Yes, please."

Her words were still heavy on his heart. There were no sides, in life, but there had to be some way to make Leah see that he wasn't trying to ignore her, or forget her, or that she was somehow less important. Like Sue knew, sometimes it took more strength to stay behind than it did to go. There was no shame in staying home.

Harry didn't know anything about the transformation. He couldn't prepare Seth; but he could prepare Leah.

"There has always been magic in our blood. From the very first, our people have been spirit warriors," Harry began the story of the Kaheleha, the first great Spirit Chief of the Quileute people, and Taha Aki, the tribe's last great Spirit Chief.

It wasn't a horrific violation of the rules, but there was always a chance that Leah would piece together what the stories said and what her friends and family were doing and work it all out. If she did that Harry was going to be in big trouble.

He didn't care. Let them come. As long as his daughter had a little bit of peace, Harry would deal with the consequences.

"And they are warriors still," Harry told his daughter. If he placed a certain emphasis on the words, well, that was all he did and it didn't seem to be enough. Leah was almost asleep beside him. He just finished: "As you and your mother prove daily."

"Cute," she muttered. "Night, Dad."

"You're mother is going to wake you up early tomorrow."

"I know." Leah sighed, stood up, stretching her arms out. "Dad? Thanks."

"Sleep well."

Harry sat on the porch for a few more minutes after Leah left, just enjoying the night air. The sound of the water crashing against the shore, and the wind blowing through the trees, and the animals slipping through the door floated through the silence to Harry, speaking his language, telling him he was not alone. He loved the night.

But it was cool out and Sue worried when she woke to an empty bed. When she laid down to rest, Sue did not like being alone (she had been alone too often in the past). So Harry hurried back inside.

He didn't move quickly enough, though Sue was only half awake when he slipped back under the covers.

"Is she safe?"

"She's already in bed."

"I'm going to kill her tomorrow."

"I said something after diner; it upset her."

"She can't keep acting like she's the only one who's ever been in a lousy situation, Harry."

"Have a heart, Sue."

But Sue didn't hear him. She was already fast asleep, so Harry rolled over and closed his eyes.


	8. 1:04:32 to 0:00:00

A/N: NOT the end, I have another chapter written. Remember that.

* * *

7:20 am

* * *

First Beach was even more beautiful during a storm than it was normally and normally Harry thought First Beach was the most perfect place in the world. But during a storm...standing on the beach, feeling the water pouring down, watching the waves crash against the stone, listening to the water calling to everyone, Harry felt his heart ache at the beauty of it all.

"Shouldn't be out in weather like this," Peter said, voice clear as always, even though the wind howled around them. "You'll get sick."

Harry shrugged and kept walking. It was very important, somehow, for him to keep walking down the beach. Despite the storm, Harry had to keep walking. Even Peter (who had never been known for his perception, even before) realized there was no convincing Harry to turn back, because he fell into step beside his old friend.

"Now, I don't mind," Peter continued. Man could talk through anything—and had. "Never cared much for my toes. They freeze off, I'm not liable to notice."

When he laughed, Harry got a spray of salt water right in his face. But he didn't care.

"I'll go in soon," he promised. "There's just something I have to do first."

"Water'll wash away the beach before you get to the end."

It wasn't a threat; it was a fact.

Still, Harry kept walking. There was something calling to him, at the end of the beach. Someplace or someone that needed him and he was going to get there. Maybe once he got there he would understand.

Harry should have known better. Life never did give you the chance to understand—best a man could do was keep going.

The water caught him suddenly, pulled him down into the black depths of the ocean. He struggled against the current for all he was worth as Peter stood on the shore and watched him drown. Water filled Harry's mouth and nose, forcing itself into his throat and lungs, pushing past all his defenses...

"Harry?"

The light blocked out everything, making Harry squint. Who was making that racket?

It took him a moment, but eventually Harry realized the wheezing was coming from him. Sue lay beside him, her face concerned, lips pursed together, highlighting the deepening creases around her mouth. When she didn't get the answer she expected, Sue sat up, helped pull her husband up and stuffed a pillow behind his back.

"That should help with your breathing." The worry faded from her face. "Have you been taking your heart medication like I keep telling you?"

"It was just a bad dream, Sue," Harry promised. "Just thought I couldn't breathe, is all. There's no need to worry."

"You didn't take it, did you?"

"Sure, I did. Leah reminded me yesterday."

Though she was still suspicious, Sue rested her head in her folded arms. "What was your dream about?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "It was raining."

"That would be your arthritis acting up. Anything else?"

"I was walking on the beach."

"So take it easy, don't further inflame your hip."

"Peter was there."

"A reminder you better not be smoking behind my back," Sue said decidedly. Apparently, men with weak hearts were denied their last bit of comfort. "Is that everything?"

"I was drowning."

A little less quickly but no less sure, Sue replied: "You need to breathe."

"You think?"

"Don't try and be smart, Harry. I have two teenagers for that."

"You're making me feel old, Sue."

"You are old, Harry. My grumpy old man." She settled herself against him and then said: "It didn't seem like a bad dream."

"It wasn't." It should have been, Harry supposed, but it hadn't been. It had been frustrating, not being able to finish his walk, and surprising, being pulled under the waves, but he hadn't been scared. Or angry. "It was good seeing Peter again. He still makes me laugh."

"Only you, Harry."

"Where are you going?"

His wife had gotten out of bed, looking around for clothing to change into. It was still early in the morning, especially since she had gotten to bed so late and Harry felt guilty for waking her. He didn't want her to feel she had to get up, too. But Sue was always quicker than he was.

"Leah and I are going to make breakfast." Every day she was grounded, Harry had a feeling Leah was going to be making breakfast at what she considered ungodly hours for making her mother stay up worrying Wednesday night. "You go back to sleep. You look like you could use the rest."

"I'm sorry I woke you," Harry said as she dressed.

"It's fine. I woke up early this morning, anyway. I don't know why. The seasons are changing, I guess."

"Watching me sleep, again?"

"You're not nearly as good looking as you used to be," his wife complained. "Come down at eight. And remember to take you medication."

With that she walked out of the room. If he had listened carefully, Harry could have heard her walk to the room beside theirs, where Leah would be sleeping soundly. But Harry didn't want to listen to the woman he loved fight, so he just closed his eyes.

He was not assaulted by half-remembered dreams, not even of the feel of water rushing over his head. Instead, Harry remembered the feel of the wind in his hair as he watched his son talk to Embry and smiled. There was something soothing about First Beach, no matter how dangerous it really was.

When the clock read eight o'clock exactly, Harry heaved himself out of bed. The round stomach of his was becoming a problem. One of these days he wouldn't be able to get himself standing again. Maybe it was a good thing his son was becoming a werewolf. Someone had to be strong enough to lift Harry's large butt around.

He met Peter in the hallway.

Not Peter, he realized holding the doorframe to stop the dizziness from taking him. Too young, too happy (the lips were fuller, the cheekbones higher—there really wasn't much of a physical resemblance besides the hair), only a foolish old man would have confused Peter with the future forklift that was also known as Harry's son. Even though Harry was a foolish old man, he also couldn't deny that his son was fourteen going on thirty. And it wasn't it fair.

It had never been fair, but now Harry was angry about it. The spirits couldn't be trying to pull the same bullshit that men of this world tried—just because you made a boy look like a man didn't mean he was one. It didn't make it right.

"Sorry about the smell," Seth greeted him cheerfully.

Why were the younger boys transforming? Surely it made more sense to take the men who were older than Sam, men who had lived long enough to leave something behind. If Seth died...

It was too horrible to imagine, so Harry didn't.

He took a couple of deep breaths and went back in the bedroom to get his medication. Usually, he ignored the white man's pills (if he was meant to meet his ancestors, he would) but today he couldn't go downstairs and greet his wife just yet. She wouldn't forgive him if Seth died; there wouldn't be enough of Harry left to forgive.

One of the pills slipped out of his shaking fingers. The sound of it hitting the floor echoed for a moment, but Harry ignored it. Later he would pick it up, he promised himself. Right then he downed another pill and tried not to picture his son bloodied and bruised and with glassy eyes.

His legs were still shaking as he walked stairs.

"Is toast okay, Harry?" Sue asked, glancing up from her cup of coffee when he walked in. The paper was spread across the table, just the way he liked it, but his wife was alone.

"Where's Leah?"

"She's got a fever," Sue sighed. "Like Seth's. But I guess both of them burning up just means you need to bring them both to Council meetings."

"Leah's sick?"

"Like Seth."

"Not like Seth," Harry said before he could stop himself. Sue's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. There was a question in her eyes that Harry couldn't answer. Not yet. "Are you sure? She seemed fine last night."

"Yes, aside from the attitude problem, she seems fine. But she's got a fever. I got her a thermometer—and if it's over thirty-nine, I'm going to take them both to the hospital this morning. It won't matter what you say."

"Seth doesn't need to go to the hospital."

"He's younger than she is."

"Seth isn't sick, Sue. But you know that already."

Sue put her coffee mug on the table—her hand was shaking too badly for her to continue holding it up. "Go see how Leah's doing. I can head to work early if her temperature's too high."

"All right."

"Harry?"

Her voice was so terrified, she didn't sound like Sue anymore. No wonder Harry froze in the doorway.

"He's going to be all right, isn't he? You'd tell me if he...he's going to be safe, right?"

There was no promise he could make; Harry never liked being a liar. "He's a good boy, Sue. They're all good boys. They'll look out for each other."

Sue turned around to fuss with the toaster, to give herself a minute. Her voice was steady as she called: "Tell her to stay in bed until I come up there."

The stairs seemed to have gotten steeper since the night before. By the time Harry reached the top, he was panting lightly and his chest felt like a werewolf was sitting on it. He waited until he wasn't breathing so hard before knocking on his daughter's door.

"What?"

Opening the door, Harry found his daughter sprawled on top of her bed, wearing only tank top and shorts and fanning herself obsessively. She did look a little peaky and Harry berated himself for not noticing it last night.

"Where's the thermometer?"

"It's broken," Leah said. "It said I had a temperature of108. Since my brain hasn't fried yet, I think it's safe to say it is very wrong."

"You still don't look right."

"It's like I'm having a hot flash. You can't be twenty and menopausal, right?"

Harry walked through the door. Sue was right—Leah's forehead was burning up. There was something in her eyes, too, that unsettled him. They were almost wild. As much as he disliked the hospital, Sue was right. Someone had to check on Leah.

"Hey, Leah. Have you seen my backpack?"

Startled, Harry found his heart thundering as he turned around to find Seth in the doorway.

"No, doorknob. I have more important things to worry about. And who said you can come in my room?"

"I can come in if I want. You're not the boss of me."

"Excuse me?"

"Why do you have to be such a bitch about _everything_?"

Seth didn't talk like that. It wasn't in his nature to be aggressive—and younger brothers didn't go into their big sisters' rooms without a damn good reason. Harry turned, too slowly. Seth was trembling, just a little, but Leah was already on her feet.

"Get out or so help me—!"

"Seth, stay away from her," Harry ordered frantically. The boys had said it was best not to get too close and there was his beautiful Leah, not two feet away from a ticking time bomb. When Leah was safe he would be Seth again and Harry would love his son. But right that second all he could see where the scars on Emily's face and the blood—so much blood. "Please, Seth, go to your room and I'll be there in a minute."

Please, Leah, Harry thought to himself, please just back away from the fight. No one will think you're weak. Just please...

Maybe there was something to telepathy after all. Leah took a step back, even as Seth turned to face his father, the shaking becoming more pronounced.

"I haven't even done anything and you're punishing me? That's not—"

There was a moment, a moment between when Seth was still his son and when there was a giant sandy-colored wolf in Leah's bedroom, where Harry was forced to witness his son fly apart. He had never seen the transformation before, just the results. Now he knew why Billy had said it didn't matter. Because if he had known that his son—for the longest second of Harry's life—was going to look like he had just stepped on a land mine, Harry never would have been able to stand the waiting.

His boy!

Shaking the dizziness from his eyes, Harry crouched down to look at the snarling, whimpering, terrified animal in front of him.

"Seth? Can you hear me? It's your father. It's going to be okay, Seth. Rest, for now. The others will be there soon."

Forcing his shaking hand (despite the pain that seemed to have descended over his arms), Harry made himself ignore the gigantic fangs. The wolf was his son. His son needed reassurance, so Harry patted his head like he was a dog.

"What the hell?" a voice whispered behind him.

Ignoring the pain in his left hand, Harry turned to see his daughter, crouched on top of her bed, back against the wall. She was holding a hairbrush out in front of her, like it would offer protection from the fur and fangs.

"Leah, it's okay. You need to..." breathing was becoming difficult, in the tiny room, especially now that Seth was taking up so much room, but Harry forced himself to say, "Calm, Leah. He won't hurt you."

"Seth?"

The werewolf lifted his muzzle towards his sister, though Harry moved to block his path. Just in case something went wrong, Leah had to stay safe. Still, he let his fingers bury themselves in the thick fur.

"Oh my—that's Seth? You—you knew?" Harry's silence gave him away. "You knew he was just going to..._furslode!_ And you didn't say—how could you? How could you not tell—!"

Leah disappeared.

On the bed there was a...a creature. It seemed smaller than Seth, but there was so much fur everywhere Harry really couldn't be sure what size it was. It was like a monster from a children's book, all hair and teeth. It was only when the dark eyes looked at him that he realized...

"No."

It couldn't be.

"No."

The stories would have said.

"That's not..."

It was impossible. The boys went to war; the girls were safe. That was the deal. That was...

"It can't..."

Leah couldn't have transformed. She was his daughter, she was beautiful, vibrant—she was looking for something better. When it got too bad for her brother, she was going to hold him, remind him someone loved him, make it better. She was supposed to have peace.

The dizziness overcame Harry. His legs gave out and he collapsed against the giant wolf beside him. There was whimpering overhead, hot breath against his face, a wet tongue against his cheek.

The howling continued.

The fur-monster—_Leah!_ It was Leah, but Harry couldn't make himself believe it—stumbled towards him, tripping over its too long fur. Harry reached out his right hand, but slowly, since he couldn't seem to move it faster. He tried to offer reassurance.

It'll be okay.

"It..."

The Council would fix it. Harry would fix it, if it was the last thing he ever did.

"…fix…"

There had to have been a mistake. This wasn't supposed to happen.

"...mistake..."

This wasn't—

* * *

8:24 am


	9. Hours later

A/N: As usual, I'd like to take the beginning of the end to thank those of you who let me know that they were reading. It helps make the time spent worthwhile. So thank you once again.

* * *

Hours later...

They had gone, now. All of them, gone. They had left her alone with Harry.

With Harry's body, Sue corrected herself quickly. They had left her with empty flesh that meant nothing to her. Harry—sweet, gentle, loving Harry—was gone. There was _nothing_ of the man she loved in the corpse her colleagues had desperately worked over long after they should have.

They hadn't wanted to give her the news.

As if she couldn't handle it.

A sob wanted to escape, but Sue managed to stop it. She held herself together the way she always did, with misplaced pride and righteous anger. She couldn't afford the luxury of self-pity. The interest alone could kill you—Peter would have agreed with her, except he had left her long ago.

_Oh, Harry, how could you leave me?_

Harry would have known what to do. Somehow, he always did. It took him a moment, always, because he didn't like to rush. But if you gave him that moment Harry came through. Always. Whatever you needed, even if you didn't know it, Harry gave it to you. In his silly little quotes, in his lovingly crafted stories, in his smile, in his always warm embrace, Harry always found a way to come through.

And now...who was going to stand beside her?

Harry was gone.

Meanwhile, the others had descended with their well-meaning suggestions and unendurable lectures. All Sue wanted to do was hold her husband's hand (he was dead, but she just wanted to pretend for a moment—one moment couldn't hurt) and they had to keep talking. They acted as if she were a simpleton, as if she hadn't understood the first time.

She may have been a woman, but she had heard the stories all her life. If she hadn't believed them before, well, that was before she found the monsters over her husband's body, before the things answered to the names of her children. There was nothing Billy or Quil had to say anymore to get Sue to believe. Now she knew all too well that the stories were real.

Just like Harry always thought.

"No wonder you looked so guilty lately," Sue told the corpse. No, she told the wind. Wherever he was now, Harry would still be listening to the wind. That was just Harry for you. "You have a terrible poker face."

Somewhere, Sue knew Harry was giving her the same slow, loving smile he always did. He would nod, then open his arms. He hated keeping secrets, especially from her. He was terrible at it; no wonder he had looked so weary lately. No wonder he couldn't sleep. No wonder he spent so many hours in his shed. No wonder the quotes had come constantly, almost as fast as they had when he first came back all those years ago. Sue couldn't believe he had managed to hold his tongue for as long as he had, even with the safety of the tribe on the line.

Was that what killed him?

But she couldn't say that to Billy and Quil. Harry wouldn't have wanted her to. He was too kind, sometimes.

How she loved that about him!

Even when it annoyed her most—how could Harry speak civilly to Sam Uley? It was one thing to dump her daughter; it was another to dump Sue's daughter after he had made her fail a year. Of course, now that she knew their stories were more than just words, she understood Harry hadn't had a choice. He loved his traditions too much. Tell him Sam was Chief and Harry would...well, Harry would have done exactly what he did.

Sue wanted to tell him she forgave him, now, but Harry was dead, so she clenched her jaw instead.

She had shaken Sam's hand when he expressed his condolences—and, more importantly, after he brought her news of her children. Maybe she could be just as respectful as Harry.

Maybe not. She had told Sam in no uncertain terms that _she_ was the mother of Leah and Seth Clearwater, and she would be the one who would take care of them, mystical transformation or not. When he wouldn't let her help—even if he had tried to be calm as he explained they simply couldn't come home as they were now, they were too big and wild and dangerous—Sue had told him to get out the hell out of her face. She would deal with him later.

"It wasn't my finest moment, Harry," she told the trees though the open window. "But he...he's keeping me away from my babies."

The hitch in her voice was obvious. Good thing she was alone. There would be no time to mourn later. There was danger out there, the men had said, and she was on the Council now.

It was only because she already knew, had stumbled onto their secret. But she didn't reject the honour they reluctantly gave to her. It was about time the Council had someone on it who wasn't...well, Old Quil was half-dead and Billy couldn't take care of himself—why did the tribe expect him to be able to care for others?

And Harry...Harry was all heart. If loving people could fix their problems, then Harry would have single-handedly saved La Push. But love didn't always work.

Love hadn't stopped their children from turning into monsters.

Sue stood up to go. She had to figure out what she was going to say to help Leah and Seth when she finally did get to see them. Harry would have known what to say. He could always make you feel better—he didn't even have to try, though Harry always did. Not like Billy and Quil—their advice to Sue earlier that day had been to go home, let them take care of _her_ dead, and wait patiently for their words of wisdom.

As well-intentioned as Harry would insist they were, Sue was ignoring Billy and Quil for as long as she could. If she didn't, she might end up strangling them and Harry would never have approved.

Only Charlie Swan, good old Charlie, seemed to understand she didn't want to listen to another lecture about what she should do. Charlie reminded her what had to be done then asked her what she wanted to do. That was all. He waited patiently and quietly, like Harry used to do. It wasn't because Harry couldn't speak up, because he could when he felt he had to, but it was just his way. Harry said more with a brief silence than most men could their entire lives—his silence said he trusted her, loved her.

She could do this.

_Harry, please can't you come back for just a moment? Just a little moment..._

Sue had been thankful for Charlie's silence, today. She would have to thank him for that, when all this was over.

When her husband was...

But she had cried herself out for the day, when Billy had first told her there was nothing else the doctors could do. Later tonight, when she went back to the house Harry had been born in, lived in, loved in, died in...when she crawled into their empty bed, alone, all alone...yes, she would cry then. Sue was sure of it. But not right now.

Right now she let Sam approach her.

"What happened to you?"

There were scratches across his face, arms and torso. They were a variety of lengths and depths and shapes. Some were blade marks—Sue would have bet good money the others were claw marks. Sam flushed, a little.

"We had to cut Leah's...you saw it. It was too long."

"And you decided to cut your skin at the same time?"

"The length of our fur depends on the length of our hair, Sue. Leah didn't like..it's hard cutting the hair of a wild animal."

"You cut her _hair_?"

If her husband hadn't died that morning maybe Sue wouldn't have shouted. Maybe. Probably not. She had been growing her daughter's hair out since Leah was a child. It was beautiful. Perfect. Harry loved his daughter's hair. And Sam had dared to cut it?

"We had to," Sam insisted. "Her fur was too long."

Sue wasn't an idiot. She had understood from Billy and Quil's shifty looks and Sam's shock that Leah was the first woman to transform. Of course the old men hadn't considered their womenfolk might be at all useful. And of course the idea of a woman who could fight like they could scared the shit out of them. So they tried to force her to become just like them—because if she wasn't beautiful, if her face was black and blue, well, then, somehow it was okay that she was strong because she wasn't a _proper _woman anymore. Right?

Bastards.

"What else did you have to do to her, Sam?"

The boy dropped his eyes and looked embarrassed. Good. Sue might have been falling apart, a little bit, but that didn't mean she was going to become a pushover anytime soon.

"I'm going to take them running once they both calm down," was all Sam said. "It'll be good for them to see the good things about...they have to learn what they can do now."

"That sounds reasonable."

"They're going to miss school." While his voice was apologetic, Sam looked firm. "It's too dangerous for them to go back anytime soon."

"Leah has to go back." Seth could afford to miss a few weeks, but Leah... "If her marks drop suddenly again..."

It would be just like last time, when Sam disappeared and Leah hadn't bothered to get her ass to school and so had lost any hope of a scholarship.

"I'm sorry, Sue. It's too dangerous."

_They're_ too dangerous—Sue heard the words Sam was too frightened to say to her. Yet she held her tongue. The men made it clear they were on Sam's side. He was the Chief in these matters and his word was law. Berating him was only going to get her ignored faster. She could let it lie until she got her head on straight. Then she would attack him more effectively.

"Fine. When can I see them?"

"You...they won't be able to speak to you, yet. They won't be able to transform back for a week, at least. Probably around two weeks. Leah might take even long...one to two weeks," Sam hurried to promise.

"They don't have to be able to talk back," she said. "I just want to—wait. One to two weeks before they can become...people again?"

"Probably closer to two," Sam warned her.

"I..." There was a moment of panic, when the fear wrapped around her heart and squeezed, but Sue pushed past it as she always did. You didn't survive by dwelling on what made you scared (that just left you bitter) and Sue was a professional survivor. And a very angry Mama Bear. "Waiting two weeks for the funeral is unacceptable."

"I'm sorry, Sue. We can bring them to the woods, that day. They just won't be able to...there's no way I can get them to calm down enough to transform back for a couple of hours in just a few days. No one's done that before. It's impossible."

So?

She was supposed to be another unfortunate statistic. Impossible was for cowards.

"Listen to me carefully, Sam Uley, because I'm only going to say this once. My children are coming to their father's funeral—on two feet. I don't care what you have to do to make that happen, but that's what's happening."

"I can't make them calm down. It doesn't work like that."

Leah and Seth were Harry's children. Oh, Leah may have looked like her mother, and lately she had developed an attitude that was almost laughably foreign to Harry, but she was still her father's daughter, through and through. And Seth...Seth might as well have been a carbon copy, all wide-eyed delight at everything. Sue's children were gentle people, a little too sensitive, a little too empathetic, a little too sweet but impossibly lovely.

But they were her children, too.

Inside Leah and Seth there was that girl who wouldn't hold her tongue, no matter how many times they ordered her to shut up. There was pure stubbornness—and a belief that she _mattered_, that she deserved _more. _He couldn't beat that out of her, no matter how hard he tried.

Her children would find that belief inside themselves and they would come to their father's funeral and stand there on two feet and show some respect for the soft-spoken man who had given them so much.

"I'm going to see them now, Sam. If you think it's impossible, then clearly someone who knows it's not needs to be talking to them. Now tell me where you're keeping my children."

"Sue, you can't—"

"Watch me. Where are they?"

They had a staring contest; Sue won. Of course she did. Somewhere in the wind, Harry was smiling proudly at her, and laughing at her just a little, too. She knew him too well to doubt it. Sam relented: "I'll take you to them now."

"Thank you, Sam. Oh, and Sam?"

"Yes, Sue?"

"It's Mrs Clearwater."

Sue stood tall at her husband's funeral. Their two children stood beside her. Sue, Leah and Seth were together as they said goodbye to Harry.

* * *

The End


End file.
